Incommensurate Wor(l)ds: Epistemic Rhetoric and Faceted Classification of
Communication Mechanics in Virtual Worlds
by
Sarah Smith-Robbins
A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Rai Peterson
Ball State University
Muncie, IN
March 28, 2011
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... ii
List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................... vi
List of Figures ......................................................................................................................................... vii
Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. ix
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. xi
Chapter 1: Incommensurate Terms, Incommensurate Practices ............................................................... 1
Purpose of the Study ...................................................................................................................................3
Significance of the Study .............................................................................................................................5
Study Variables and Predicted Relationships ..............................................................................................6
Conceptual Framework ...............................................................................................................................7
Constructivist Pedagogy .........................................................................................................................7
Constructionist Learning Theory ............................................................................................................8
Epistemic Rhetoric and Virtual Worlds .................................................................................................12
Research Method ......................................................................................................................................14
Limitations and Bias ..................................................................................................................................15
Chapter 2: Background and Current State of Virtual World Technology ................................................. 16
Current State of Virtual Worlds .................................................................................................................16
Virtual Worlds as a Revolution .............................................................................................................18
Virtual Worlds as a Reality ....................................................................................................................19
The Eight Realities ................................................................................................................................19
Media Reality Lacks Interactivity ..........................................................................................................21
The Role and Impact of Interactivity on Media Reality ........................................................................22
Why Virtual Worlds are Different from Other Interactive Media ........................................................24
The Truths of Virtual Worlds .....................................................................................................................26
Truth 1: Virtual Worlds Allow Users to Leave and Return to the Reality .............................................26
Truth 2: Virtual World Users Contribute to the Reality by Constructing Their Avatars’ Stories ...........26
Truth 3: Virtual World Users Form Shifting Parasocial Relationships with Their Avatars ....................27
Truth 4: Virtual Worlds Create Finite Spaces of Normative Technological Determinism .....................27
Kuhn’s Cycle of Scientific Revolution .........................................................................................................28
The Development of Terminology .............................................................................................................30
Challenges in Researching Virtual Worlds ................................................................................................32
ii
Growth of Virtual Worlds ..........................................................................................................................34
Operational Definition of Virtual Worlds ..................................................................................................38
Communication within Virtual Worlds ......................................................................................................41
Communicative Action Theory ..................................................................................................................42
Activity Theory ..........................................................................................................................................43
Other Methodological Toolkits..................................................................................................................44
Chapter 3: Classification of Virtual Worlds ............................................................................................. 46
Faceted Classification................................................................................................................................46
Facet Identification ...................................................................................................................................48
Facet 1: Dominant Form of Content .....................................................................................................51
Facet 2: Dominant Form of User-to-User Communication ...................................................................52
Facet 3: Level of Stigmergy ...................................................................................................................53
Facet 4: Level of Object Ownership ......................................................................................................54
Facet 5: Level of User Identity Formation ............................................................................................55
Facet 6: Level of Environmental Access ................................................................................................57
Facet 7: Nature of User Relationship With Other Users .......................................................................58
Facet 8: Nature of User Relationship With the Environment ...............................................................59
Facet 9: Level of Access to Groups .......................................................................................................60
Facet 10: Number of Groups That Can Be Joined Simultaneously .......................................................60
Development of a Notational System .......................................................................................................61
Bivariate Comparison of Virtual Worlds....................................................................................................63
Level of Stigmergy vs. Level of Object Ownership ................................................................................64
Level of Stigmergy vs. Level of Identity Formation ...............................................................................67
Level of Object Ownership vs. Nature of User-to-User Relationship ...................................................71
Nature of User-to-User Relationship vs. Nature of User-to-Environment Relationship ......................74
Nature of User-to-User Relationship vs. Number of Groups That Can Be Joined Simultaneously .......77
User-to-Environment Relationship vs. Group Number ........................................................................82
User-to-User Relationship vs. Identity Formation ................................................................................84
User-to-User Relationship vs. Stigmergy ..............................................................................................89
Chapter 4 Using Activity Theory and Genre Ecology Models to Connect Facets with Motivations in
Virtual World Education ......................................................................................................................... 92
Activity Theory: An Introduction ...............................................................................................................93
Research Methods and Activity Theory .....................................................................................................99
Expectations in a Virtual World ..............................................................................................................100
Subjects, Tools, and Objects in Virtual Worlds ........................................................................................101
Subject ................................................................................................................................................102
Tools ...................................................................................................................................................103
iii
Object .................................................................................................................................................103
Activity Theory and the World of Warcraft Tutorial ...............................................................................105
Activity Theory and the Second Life Tutorial ...........................................................................................108
Genre Ecology Models: The Next Step in Activity Theory ........................................................................111
Origins of GEM ........................................................................................................................................112
Unit of Analysis in Genre Ecology Models ...............................................................................................115
Genre Ecology Modeling Process ............................................................................................................116
Defining Work Within the Genre Ecology Model ....................................................................................117
Creating Genre Ecology Models for Virtual World Tutorials ...................................................................119
Commensurate Genres and Ecologies in User-Defined Activities............................................................122
Coordinating Motivations and Expected Activity Outcomes ...................................................................127
Using Activity and Genre to Choose Virtual Worlds for Educational Applications ..................................136
Chapter 5: Implications, Limitations and Further Study ........................................................................ 139
Virtual Worlds .........................................................................................................................................139
Findings ...............................................................................................................................................139
Limitations ..........................................................................................................................................140
Further Studies ...................................................................................................................................141
Educational Technology ..........................................................................................................................142
Findings ...............................................................................................................................................143
Classification...................................................................................................................................143
Application .....................................................................................................................................143
Limitations ..........................................................................................................................................144
Further Studies ...................................................................................................................................145
Conceptual Implications ..........................................................................................................................145
Epistemic Rhetoric ..............................................................................................................................145
Findings ..........................................................................................................................................146
Limitations ......................................................................................................................................146
Further Studies ...............................................................................................................................147
Activity Theory ....................................................................................................................................147
Findings ..........................................................................................................................................147
Limitations ......................................................................................................................................147
Further Studies ...............................................................................................................................148
Genre Ecology Model .........................................................................................................................148
Findings ..........................................................................................................................................148
Limitations ......................................................................................................................................149
Further Studies ...............................................................................................................................149
Other Implications and Further Study .....................................................................................................149
iv
Conclusion ...............................................................................................................................................150
Appendix.............................................................................................................................................. 151
Works Cited ......................................................................................................................................... 164
v
List of Tables
Table 2-1 Bordewijk and Kaam’s Matrix ........................................................................... 24
Table 3-1 Results of Bivariate Comparison of Virtual World Facets ................................. 62
Table 4-1 User-Created Activities Defined by Relationship to Designer-Provided Goals
......................................................................................................................................... 124
Table 4-2 Strategic, Tactical, and Operational Goals and Activities across Virtual Worlds,
Courses, and Students .................................................................................................... 125
Table 4-3 Analysis of virtual world education case studies for activity coordination. ... 129
vi
List of Figures
Fig. 2-1. Kuhn’s cycle of scientific revolution. ................................................................... 29
Fig. 2-2. Breakdown in Kuhn’s cycle of scientific revolution. ........................................... 30
Fig. 2-3. A typical scene in Habitat. ................................................................................... 36
Fig. 3-1. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by levels of stigmergy and
object ownership. ............................................................................................................. 65
Fig. 3-2. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by levels of stigmergy and identify
formation. ......................................................................................................................... 68
Fig. 3-3. Avatar in Second Life. .......................................................................................... 69
Fig. 3-4. Avatar in Qwak. ................................................................................................... 70
Fig. 3-5. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by level of object
ownership and nature of user-to-user relationship. ........................................................ 72
Fig. 3-6. Users in ExitReality viewing a webpage displayed on a wall in a
virtual lobby. ..................................................................................................................... 73
Fig. 3-7. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by nature of user-to-user
relationship and nature of user-to-environment relationship. ........................................ 75
Fig. 3-8. A bounty hunter accompanied by a droideka robot used to locate
assassination targets in Star Wars Galaxies. .................................................................... 76
Fig. 3-9. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by nature of user-to-user
relationship and number of groups that can be joined simultaneously. ......................... 78
vii
Fig. 3-10. The group management menu in Second Life allows group leaders to assign
roles and abilities to group members. .............................................................................. 79
Fig. 3-11. The Masters of Substance guild from World of Warcraft pose for a
portrait. ............................................................................................................................. 81
Fig. 3-12. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by nature of user-toenvironment relationship and number of groups that can be joined simultaneously. ... 83
Fig. 3-13. A starting character in Warhammer Online. ..................................................... 85
Fig. 3-14. The same Warhammer Online character shown in fig. 3-13, 20
levels later. ........................................................................................................................ 85
Fig. 3-15. Customizations of a Second Life avatar’s customizations................................. 88
Fig. 3-16. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by nature of user-to-user
relationship and method of identity formation. .............................................................. 88
Fig. 3-17. Classification of virtual worlds into quadrants by nature of user-to-user
relationships and stigmergy. ............................................................................................. 90
Fig. 3-18. A recreation of the Eiffel Tower in Second Life. ................................................ 90
Fig. 4-1. Diagram of the relationships in Activity Theory. ................................................ 94
Fig. 4-2. Activity Theory triangle in context. ..................................................................... 96
Fig. 4-3. Activity, action, and operation are related ......................................................... 98
Fig. 4-4. Final billboard in the Second Life tutorial space. .............................................. 109
Fig. 4-5. Simplified communication event model of a help-desk communication
process. ........................................................................................................................... 113
viii
Fig. 4-6. Genre ecology model of a help-desk communication process that
incorporates alternative tools to accomplish a purpose. ............................................... 114
Fig. 4-7. Genre ecology model of the World of Warcraft tutorial. ................................. 121
Abstract
Brummett’s ontological view of epistemic rhetoric frames a world in which reality is
truly only shaped once it is communicated. This reality creation is uniquely performed
within online spaces that are separated from the physical world by means of
programming code and internal culture. These spaces are constructed of language and
constitute new realities (Chesebro ) which are fundamentally rhetorical. However, the
study of these tools lack shared terminology with which to classify and understand their
potential as educational spaces. This study explores connections between
communication mechanics of multi-user social technologies and their effectiveness as
teaching tools. The study focuses on virtual worlds (defined as WAN-based, persistent,
multi-user spaces which include avatars), such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, as
examples of multi-user social technologies because these tools converge mechanics and
communication tools found separately elsewhere. Communication mechanics are
operationalized as facets found through the application of Shiyali Ranganathan’s
Faceted Classification method. The facets of seventy worlds are first identified. These
facets are then used to describe typical uses of the facets through Activity Theory
(Engeström) and Genre Ecology Models (Spinuzzi). Finally, a framework is suggested for
selecting virtual worlds and the most effective activities within them by ensuring
ix
coordination among the strategic, tactical, and operational goals and activities of the
tool, the course/instructor, and student.
x
Acknowledgements
This research would not have been possible without the support and guidance of Dr. Rai
Peterson and Dr. Brian McNely who helped me pull up my boot straps and move
forward. For the pep talks when I needed them, the inspiration when I had run out, and
the willingness to stick it out and believe I could do it...I thank you.
I would also like to thank the following:
- My husband, Mark, for understanding my work, listening when I needed to talk, and
for never letting me give up. I know you will learn from all of my mistakes.
- My children for forgiving me when I had to work instead of play and for believing that
"Dr. Mommy" could happen.
- My parents, Kathy and Harold, for always indulging me and my crazy ideas.
- Dr. John Cady for believing I could get it done and giving me the time to do it.
For Shane: You started me down the road. I only wish you could have finished with me.
xi
Chapter 1: Incommensurate Terms, Incommensurate Practices
We live in a digital age in which technology is developed, distributed, and
accessed at speeds never before seen in history. When Intel founder Gordon Moore
correctly predicted in the 1960s that the capacity for computer processing and memory
would double every two years, no one could anticipate the social and cultural impacts
that such rapid development would bring with it. Today’s most basic cell phone has over
a thousand times more processing power than did the early mega-computers of the
1960s. Even more important than the power of such technology is its accessibility; no
longer in the hands of a few computer scientists, today’s advanced technologies are
affordable and integrated into our everyday lives. Moreover, they give us far more than
the ability to crunch data; they connect us. Manuel Castells described the impact of the
greatly increased access to information and to each other that our networked world
offers:
As soon as new information technologies diffused, and were
appropriated by different countries, various cultures, diverse
organizations, and miscellaneous goals, they exploded in all kinds of
applications and uses that fade back into technological innovation,
accelerating the speed, broadening the scope of technological change,
and diversifying its sources. (6)
Although humans have established social networks as long as we have existed,
never before have those networks included such a vast array of global connections to
2
individuals and information, and never before have those networks developed as
quickly or as dynamically as they do now due to social technologies. The tangible
manifestations of our networked world range from ubiquitous access provided by
broadband, Wi-Fi, and smart phones to software that has become deeply integrated
into our lives in the form of email, text messages, and social networks. These tools have
changed the ways we connect to the individuals in our lives, discover new information,
and see the world around us.
Given the great impact that personal technology has had on our lives in general,
it is no surprise that it has greatly impacted our education systems. As chalkboards have
evolved into smart boards, notebooks into netbooks, and encyclopedias into databases,
the classroom and its technology has greatly changed. Indeed, they have changed to
such an extent that some students no longer enter a physical classroom. For those
students who want to learn but cannot or simply choose not to share a physical space
with other students, their options have expanded from correspondence courses via
postal mail to interactive, synchronous online courses accompanied by services ranging
from virtual office hours with the instructor to shared collaboration spaces with fellow
students. Technology has allowed distance education, and even classroom education, to
move from a one-to-many model with the instructor coordinating learning from the
middle to a many-to-many model in which communication among students is an
integral as is communication with the instructor.
Those born in the United States within the last 20 years cannot recall a world in
which the Internet was not accessible on a regular basis in their everyday lives. Those
3
born within the past decade cannot recall a world without Google. Throughout these
years, the introduction and development of such technologies has been disruptive to
educators but also exciting, with scholars from every discipline becoming increasingly
willing to embrace opportunities to leverage emerging technologies to aid their research
and to engage their students. These new technologies offer educators the means of
reaching and teaching students wherever they are in new ways that are effective and
exciting. However, technological advances move quickly, and often too quickly for
educators to keep apace. To address such a challenge, educators must identify a means
of rapidly gaining understanding of emerging technologies, evaluating a tool’s potential
and effectiveness in a course, and sharing best practices and research findings.
New technologies pose challenges not only due to the rapid speed of their
development but also their multidisciplinary nature; as the research related to these
tools develops within a variety of fields and uses varying terminology, it often lacks
cohesion or explicit connections to other fields and findings. This study aims to address
this challenge within one family of technologies, the family of virtual world (VW)
technologies, by developing a prototype approach to classifying these technologies
using a shared terminology that will assist in the use of these technologies for
educational purposes.
Purpose of the Study
Ultimately, the processes of teaching and learning are rhetorical. One does not
truly know what one understands until one puts it to use, tests the concept against
4
one’s experience in the world, or shares it with another person, as information is
conveyed, shared, tested, and gathered through communication with others. As a
result, rhetoricians are the best suited to tackle the task of developing a method to
classify technologies for education.
This study consists of four phases in the course of achieving its larger goal of
developing a prototype approach to classifying VW technologies. First, it develops a
common definition of VWs, which serves as an important foundation for the remainder
of the work. Second, it describes the concept of faceted classification to demonstrate
how this method provides a means of both distinguishing VWs from one another and
connecting facets to the communication modes that they make possible, and then
applies the method to identify the mechanics common to VWs. Next, the study will
argue that these modes create genres which are an integral part of understanding the
activities which take place in VWs, both designer-provided activities as well as usercreated activities. Finally, using activity theory (AT) and genre ecology modeling (GEM)
in combination with the facets, a heuristic will be developed to assist educators in
developing the most effective educational activities within a particular VW.
As it progresses toward achieving these aims, this study fulfills the following goals:

Create a common definition and shared terms to refer to VWs

Provide a method for VW researchers to refer to and understand the
mechanics of a specific world and create a more cohesive conversation
5

Draw attention to the importance of rhetorical functions in the educational
applications of multiuser technologies.

Offer the beginning of a more accessible and effective way to choose and
implement new technologies for learning.
The guiding question of this work is this: How are the communication mechanics of
multiuser technologies related to the educational potential and effectiveness of these
technologies?
Significance of the Study
There is currently no standardized means of classifying technologies other than
by their designed purpose. For example, all chat programs, such as AOL Instant
Messenger and Google chat, are categorized into the broad functional category of chat,
a practice that does not allow for differentiation among the various programs according
to their subtle differences using terms that assist users in determining their use in an
educational or research setting. Although some educational technology professionals
refer to systems such as Bloom’s Technological Taxonomy to categorize tools, such
systems refer only to the types of cognitive applications for which a tool may be suited.
Currently, no standard, widely accepted system aids educators in identifying and
determining whether a tool is best suited for a specific purpose or to guide the design of
a learning experience using the tool. In addition, the literature demonstrates that there
is a lack of shared terminology among the various disciplines who study such tools,
including telecommunications, informatics, computer science, results in the publishing
6
of research findings using a variety of terms for the same tool that may be inaccessible
among the various disciplines.
Study Variables and Predicted Relationships
The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between the
communication mechanics behind and opportunities provided by multiuser technologies
and the technologies’ potential for educational use. To be effective, a study of this type
must maintain as narrow a focus as possible; attempting to explore all technologies with
educational potential would have an overly broad scope and result in overly general
results. Based on this consideration, this study focused on the examination of VWs, a
category of technologies whose use is becoming increasingly popular in educational
settings. The reason for the selection of VWs as the focus of study is that they provide a
variety of communication channels within one tool, such as text chat and audio chat,
whereas other tools typically provide only one channel (Bell 15), thus allowing for the
analysis of several channels within one tool. Therefore, a study of VWs can also include
analysis of some of these channels and perhaps cover more ground than an analysis of a
single-channel tool could provide. A discussion of the channels included within a VW can
be found in chapter two.
This examination was based on the argument that, rather than other methods of
choosing technology to best apply to an educational need, analyzing the genres
represented by and dominant activities provided by a tool is the most effective means
of designing educational uses for it and evaluating its educational effectiveness.
7
Conceptual Framework
This study was based on the assumptions contained within two conceptual
frameworks. In accordance with constructivist pedagogy, this study was based on the
assumptions that learning is the result of the exchange of information and that social
interaction is a powerful source of meaningful learning. In accordance with epistemic
rhetoric, this study assumed that because individuals exist within a world created
through language, rhetoric is the means by which they express and share their reality; as
such, there is no shared existence without communication. Each of these positioning
paradigms is discussed later in greater detail.
Constructivist Pedagogy
According to the developmental psychologist Edith Ackermann (18),
constructivism can be described as the theory of imagining new learning environments
and constructionism as a situated and pragmatic learning theory that is easily
extendable to other theories and tools. Constructivist pedagogy was selected as the
framework of this study for several reasons. First, constructivist pedagogy was
developed as an outgrowth of constructivism, an established, acknowledged learning
theory. Second, although not without controversy and critics, the theory is currently at
the forefront of current learning theory debate, where it is becoming more widely
accepted as an established theory. Third, the theory is easily applicable to VW
educational opportunities, and thus readily applicable to the study aim of examining
how learning theories may lead to the creation of thoughtful VW learning experiences.
8
Indeed, as VWs are by definition imagined new environments in the sense that they are
a new reality, the application of constructivism to VWs proved a good fit, as it allowed
for the exploration of the connection between learning and the spaces in which learning
occurred.
Finally, constructivist pedagogy is most closely aligned with my own theory of
learning and the experiences I design. According to Ackermann, one’s theories of
learning are deeply rooted in one’s “convictions on what it means to be knowledgeable,
intelligent, experienced, and what it takes to become so“ (15). My conviction, like
Ackermann’s, is that one-way idea transmission is ineffective in the classroom because
the classroom is a complex, dynamic environment that requires different approaches
within different contexts which aligns with the framework of constructivist pedagogy.
The following section reviews the elements of this theory and related theories and their
strengths and weaknesses to provide greater understanding of the framework upon
which this study was based.
Constructionist Learning Theory
Constructivism, a theory based on the ontological and epistemological
psychological theories of Piaget, has been applied to education by many scholars
(Brainerd, Bodner, Ginsberg, O’Loughlin). Piaget proposed that individuals construct
their worldviews based on their experience and bring that experience to bear on any
new information that they encounter (Ackerman 3). Building on the constructivist
theories of Jean Piaget, Seymour Papert developed the learning framework of
constructionism, which he described as “the reconstruction rather than transmission of
9
knowledge". He then extended it to the “manipulation of materials“ based on his belief
that the best learning results from “constructing a meaningful product”
(Constructionism: A New Opportunity for Elementary Science Education). More
specifically, Papert and Harel described constructionism as “demanding everything be
understood by being constructed” (2), as constructionism is more than simply “learningby-making” (6).
In his later work, Papert viewed constructionism as starting with the
constructivist notion of “building knowledge structures” by the progressive
internalization of actions (Ackerman 4). Based on the learning theory of
constructionism, as well as the expanded base of distributed constructionism, he
explained that individuals in learning situations create public entities that can be
discussed and shared through electronic networks. Specifically, he postulated that
constructionism adds to the constructivist grounding by creating public entities that can
represent “that the learner is consciously engaged in . . . whether it’s a sand castle on
the beach or a theory of the universe” (1). Ackermann described these public entities as
tangible and sharable entities that inform students’ ideas and allow students to better
communicate them to the instructor and other learners and thus “best support the
exploration of what [the learner] most cares about” (4). Ackermann argued that these
entities may act as more than cultural artifacts (like that of the social constructivist Lev
Vygotsky) and become aids, most likely of a digital nature and relying on a higher level
of initiative, that play a higher role in the development of the student (5).
10
To gain further understanding of Papert’s conception of constructionism, it is
helpful to review the environments that have applied this theory, which not only
expands understanding of the theory but also places it within the context of VWs.
Papert applied the theory in two main areas: Logo (a computer software program) and
Mindstorms (programmable Lego toys). Papert wanted to teach mathematics to
children using a teletype machine, a computer, a large flat surface, and a cybernetic toy
called a “turtle” (Harvey 50). Through such means, Papert taught the children
mathematics by having them work with objects rather than memorizing mathematical
concepts by rote, thus instructing the students to consider mathematics concrete
objects to manipulate rather than abstractions of ideas. Papert later expanded his
teaching by instructing the students to use LOGO, which he described as not only a
computer language but also a “philosophy of education” to learn by building rather than
memorizing concepts (Logo Philosophy and Implementation vii). After reviewing
Papert’s 1999 publication Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, the
Lego company engaged him to create tools with Legos.
Other researchers soon developed constructionist tools, such as computational
construction kits, to “enable individuals to express themselves in ever-more complex
ways, deepening their relationships with new domains of knowledge” (Resnick,
Bruckman, and Martin 281). Built on constructional-design principles, these kits enabled
the development of the personal and epistemological connections needed within
constructionist learning environments. MIT Labs further researched constructionist
science learning tools such as electronic bird feeders, marble machines, and a variety of
11
tools created with Lego bricks (Resnick, Berg, and Eisenberg). In 2004, Gromik used the
computer program Sim City to teach English as a second language to Japanese high
school students.
VWs expand the constructionist educator’s toolbox to include an almost
unlimited supply of building materials. Although not tangible like Lego blocks, the
objects within VWs are only limited by the imagination. Created at the Interactive
Computing Environments lab at the University of Illinois of Chicago, the narrative-based
immersive constructionist/collaborative environment (NICE) offers a virtual garden
within a virtual reality environment within which to explore constructionist learning
theories (Roussos et al. 62). Similarly, the VERTEX project allows elementary classroom
students to construct objects in three-dimensional VWs (Bailey and Moar 21).
Focusing on constructionism in technological network environments and linking
the theory to distributed cognition, Resnick et al expanded the theoretical base of
constructionism to encompass the concept of distributed constructionism. Resnick
described the three main distributed constructionist activities as those of discussing
constructions, sharing constructions, and collaborating on constructions. Their expanded
version of constructionism has been applied to research of VWs, and in particular of the
VW Second Life. For example, Carina Girvan and Timothy Savage used distributed
constructionism as the basis for their case study of Second Life by creating activities for
VW students based on Resnick’s distributed constructionist activities.
12
Epistemic Rhetoric and Virtual Worlds
Being clearly of a different nature than political speeches, argument
construction, and other common subjects of rhetorical analysis, VWs may appear an
unusual focus for rhetoricians. In contrast, this paper argues that VWs should be
primary targets of rhetorical analysis. Indeed, of all modern forms of communication,
VWs appear most suitable for rhetoric scholarship simply because they are composed of
rhetoric and discourse. Barry Brummett divided epistemic rhetoric into three arenas
that together form a scale related to the extent to which rhetoric is believed to either
uncover reality or create reality. He begins describing epistemic rhetoric as
methodological, a view that postulates that rhetoric is merely a method with which to
present alternate understandings of an existing reality or discoverable truth (1).
Brummett next presented a social epistemic view of rhetoric that delegates rhetoric to a
social rather than a material reality, explaining that by leaving the material reality and
all its associated truths to the hard sciences, social epistemic rhetoric allows rhetoric to
discover and create “reality and knowledge about reality in the social sphere of ethics,
politics, morals, religion, etc” (3). Finally, Brummett proposed an ontological view of
epistemic rhetoric based on the assumption that “rhetoric creates all of what there is to
know” in a world where “discourse creates realities rather than truths about realities”
(4). For the remainder of this paper the term epistemic rhetoric is used to refer to this
ontological view.
If Brummett’s conception of epistemic rhetoric is accepted as ontological, it
clearly encompasses the concept of VWs, which is a construct of language and
13
communication. VW designers write the programming language behind the interface to
establish the possibilities and expectations, based upon which users construct
themselves and perform actions within this constructed reality as a dialogue. Every
avatar tweaked, every step taken, or chat initiated is a result of the user’s choice within
the programmer’s framework. Because there is no nature, no default physics, or
biological imperative, everything that occurs within a VW comprises a rhetorical act,
regardless of whether actions are taken to accomplish a given task or perform a role.
Epistemic rhetoric argues that reality and language exist in a mutual cocreative
relationship. Reality is perceived by the senses, which are interpreted through thought
using language that shapes how one perceives and interacts with reality. As new
realities, VWs offer spaces in which users create their own worlds—that is, their own
interpretations of the real world as perceived by their physical senses—that can then
become “known” to others through the artificial senses provided by that VW’s
mechanics. Because programming languages create the virtual physical world from
which VWs are constructed, these programming languages construct the basis for the
user’s artificial senses and the forms of language and expression that can then exist
within the world. VWs are, therefore, the epitome of the epistemic rhetoric; they are
worlds in which users and their sensory systems are created and experienced purely by
language. Whether the relationship that exists within a VW is the relationship among
the programmer, the user, and the world or the relationship between two users and the
world as their field of communication, the interpretation of the space perceived through
the artificial senses constitutes a shared social construction of reality.
14
Beyond any other form of communication, VWs are constructs of discourse.
Reader response theorists, such as Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish, and Louise Rosenblatt,
have argued that when readers engage in discourse with a text, they create a reality
that exists in the interpretation somewhere among the author, text, and reader, but
that this reality is extremely limited when compared to the agency afforded to a user in
a VW. Even Espen Aarseth’s concept of ergodic literature, defined as texts that require a
significant effort on the part of the reader to consume such as “choose-your-ownadventure” novels and hypertexts, are not as participatory as are VWs. One does not
simply consume and interpret a VW; one creates it and dialogues with it and with other
users within it to further the development of a discourse-created reality on a scale never
before observed.
Research Method
Before testing whether the application of communication mechanics is an
adequate means of evaluating a learning technology, one must first identify and
describe those mechanics. As later described in greater detail, this study employed
Ranganathan’s faceted classification method to identify and describe the common
mechanics that contribute to the most frequent forms of communication in an analysis
of 70 VWs. After checking the facets against Louise Spiteri’s characteristics for functional
facets, it then performed bivariate comparison of coexisting facets to identify common
and uncommon combinations of facets within the worlds studied to ensure that
15
categories of worlds had not been excluded and that the sample was representative of
existing VWs.
Limitations and Bias
The primary limitation of this study was that its scope was limited to the
examination of the VW technology, which is but one of many technologies currently
being leveraged for educational purposes. Although many other types of multiuser tools
could have been examined, doing so within this study would have been impractical due
to resource constraints.
The primary source of possible bias arose from my own personal perceptions. As
a rhetorician, the author perceives every exchange as a form of communication, which
may have led her to focus too strongly on how individuals exchange ideas using a tool
rather than other characteristics that may be considered significant in other fields, such
as how a tool is constructed or the political or social assumptions behind a tool’s design.
However, given the aim of this research, my field prepares a researcher to approach the
problem better than a scholar from a field that does not study communication.
Chapter 2: Background and Current State of Virtual World Technology
As a topic of study that crosses the boundaries of many disciplines, the concept
of VWs has been examined through a variety of lenses using different methodologies
and described using different terminologies. Establishing a shared definition of VWs and
a common method with which to describe their mechanics will allow for the
development of a more cohesive scholarly discussion and understanding.
Current State of Virtual Worlds
One can fly without wings or an airplane. One can fight armies of evil goblins or
lead a group of loyal knights into battle. One can make friends from throughout the
world with whom to share ideas without even leaving one’s desk. One do it all in a VW.
Rather than passively watching television or playing a console game against a computer,
residents of VWs choose to slide into alternate realities inhabited by other real
individuals. In 2009 alone, 30 million individuals logged onto a VW to explore realms
unlike any place they had ever seen before (Keegan). In 2007, World of Warcraft
reported 8.5 million users, Habbo Hotel 7.5 million users, and Club Penguin 4 million
users (Keegan). These users have started businesses, conducted research, or simply
shopped for a great pair of shoes. In fantasy VWs, users have formed guilds with
hundreds of members to take on challenges more complex than any that they have
encountered at their workplace.
Although not yet mainstream, VW immersion has become widespread,
particularly with the dramatic developments in immersive three-dimensional worlds and
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massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) over the past few years.
VWs are no longer fringe spaces only used by teenage boys and Dungeons and Dragons
enthusiasts. Virtual social worlds such as Second Life have much broader appeal. Indeed,
Gartner estimated that by 2012, 80% of active Internet users will have some kind of
“second life,” meaning that they will have created an avatar, a virtual expression of
themselves, in one or more immersive online spaces. As VWs increasingly enter the
mainstream media, as has Second Life, which has been featured in the plots of popular
television programs, what was once the domain of the few will be brought into the
media environment of millions. VW immersion will become even more widespread as
seeing a movie associated with an online game becomes increasingly more expensive
than paying for one month of access to an online game situated within a VW. Indeed,
users have spent more on obtaining access to World of Warcraft online than they have
on seeing the season’s blockbuster movie.
Once a topic limited to gaming scholars, the concept of VWs has become a topic
too large to be understood from only one field. Indeed, interest has surged in such a
large number of VWs that researchers in the fields of media studies, anthropology,
sociology, human computer interaction, education, and business are having difficulty
identifying them in all their forms and variations. In 2008, The Social Sciences Research
Network listed over 125 and the EBSCO database over 1,200 academic articles
discussing VWs. Despite such research attention, researchers have not yet fully
identified the attraction that VWs hold for their users. More specifically, they have not
yet fully addressed research questions such as the following:
18
•
Why do users spend so much time in VWs?
•
Do users enter VWs to escape the analog world?
•
Is VW addiction a real problem?
•
How do users form relationships within VWs?
•
Which literacy skills and information navigation methods are users
developing within VWs?
•
How does user-generated content factor into the attraction to VWs?
•
How do game mechanics affect the VW experience?
Before these questions are addressed, the foundation on which VWs are built
must be understood.
Virtual Worlds as a Revolution
According to Edward Castronova, individuals increasingly choose to interact
within VWs rather than in analog spaces, leading to an exodus from the analog world
that will have a great impact on many of its common structures, such as movie theaters
and lecture halls, and the cultures that surround their use (xiv). He predicted that
widespread immersion in VWs will initiate a social revolution that fundamentally
changes the very basic elements of how humans relate to one another, entertain
themselves, and earn an income. Representing both a social shift and a technological
advance, VW immersion constitutes not only a social but also a scientific revolution. As a
revolution is a dramatic break from that which occurred previously, one must gain
understanding of the reality before the revolution and how the revolution altered it.
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Virtual Worlds as a Reality
VWs constitute a new reality with its own truths and facts. Making this argument
requires several steps which are explicated in the following sections. First, realities are
defined using William James’ concept of the seven realities. Next, the eighth reality,
media reality, coined by James Chesebro will be added. However, Chesebro’s concept of
media reality does not account for more recent developments of interactive media (in
which VWs exist). To gain understanding of how VWs form a new reality, one must first
gain understanding of the concepts of interactivity, virtual reality, and cyberspace, all of
which differentiate the media reality from VW reality. After establishing that VWs
constitute a new form of reality, it becomes clear that there is a great need to develop a
system with which to examine them.
The Eight Realities
To prove that VWs constitute a reality worthy of close scrutiny, one must first
establish a common understanding of the concept of reality. In Principles of Psychology,
James identified the following seven psychological realities:
1. The world of sense as expressed in the physical world.
2. The world of science as expressed in the mechanics, forces, and states
of the physical world.
3. The world of ideal relationships as expressed in abstract truths and
mathematics.
4. The world of “idols of the tribe” as expressed in illusions and beliefs
common to the human race.
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5. The world of the supernatural as expressed in mythology, fiction, and
religion.
6. The world of individual opinion.
7. The world of madness and vagary. (292)
According to James, all experience and thought exist within one of these
realities, each of which is defined by truths that often contradict experience yet are
accepted within the reality. James explains that all experience, all thought, exists within
one of these realities. The Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell, for example, exist in
the reality of the supernatural, reality five. He explained that colors and music exist in
the first reality because they are the results of sensory information; the concepts of
gravity, atomic weight, and light waves exist in the second reality, the world of science;
and that the paranoia and imagined voices that are truths within the insane mind exist
in the seventh world.
As he described these worlds in the late 19th century, James could not have
imagined the further realities that would be created by mass media and technology,
such as those created by television and the Internet. Chesebro argued that such “media
themselves constitute a socially constructed reality” (116), proposing an eighth reality to
account for the truths present in television shows, film, and other forms of media.
Drawing on the example of television news broadcasting, he explained that because
editing, story selection, camera angle, and other factors unique to television create a
different frame of existence for a relayed event, the reality experienced while viewing
television news is not identical to that of experiencing an event firsthand. The television
21
footage of the January 15, 2009 landing of a U.S. Airways plane on the Hudson River, for
example, was not equal to the experience of being on the plane or of being on a bridge
nearby watching the plane land. Although the reality of the event as presented by a
television news network reflected the selection of footage and facts available at the
time, viewers believed that they knew what happened because they had observed, a
version of the event’s truth. Thus, the reality of the media was the only reality for them,
at least at that moment. As Chesebro concluded, “Electronic media in particular now
constitute an independent and profound reality equal in power to the understandings
generated by other socially constructed realities” (116).
Media Reality Lacks Interactivity
As Chesebro was defining media reality in 1984, interactive media was in its
nascent forms. At the time, most media lacked interactivity. The concept of interactivity
has been defined in a variety of ways. Whereas Chris Crawford defined interactivity as
“a cyclical process between two or more active agents in which each agent alternately
listens, thinks, and speaks” (Chris Crawford on Game Design 29), Jonathan Steuer
defined it as “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and
content of a mediated environment in real time” (46). In 1984, video games, for
example, were primarily arcade games such as Asteroids (released in 1979) and
Defender (released in 1980) in which users could take a limited range of actions.
Although computer games such as King’s Quest and Zork were emerging at this time,
they too allowed only limited actions and provided only simple text commands (“attack
monster” for example) that were tightly defined and not open to user experimentation.
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The most dominant forms of media in the mid-1980s were passive forms of media, such
as television and film. Regarding the level of interactivity of the media at that time,
Chesebro argued, “Audiences are discouraged from anticipating or recognizing
ideological dimension in the electronic media” (122), while Monaco (as cited in
Chesebro) described television and film, the most accessible forms of media of the time,
as reflective of “others’ dreams, not ours, other’s worldviews and conclusions, not our
own” (122). Technologically mediated interactivity was clearly at a nascent stage while
Chesebro was developing his conception of media reality.
In the 25 years since Chesebro first proposed the concept of media reality, the
media has become incredibly more complex, hypermediated (Bolter and Grusen), and
interactive, allowing users much greater control over their media consumption . Media
spaces such as video games have offered increasingly fluid experiences characterized by
infinite range of action and multiple channels of user-to-user interaction. As Crawford
explained, the media is now a much better listener, a much better thinker, and certainly
speaks back in far more complex ways (Chris Crawford on Game Design29).
The Role and Impact of Interactivity on Media Reality
Interactivity, the cyclical experience described by Crawford, can assume a variety
of forms, depending on the technology involved. Based on theories of transactional
reading and reader response, which define a space between the reader and the text in
which interpretation occurs, Iser, Fish, and Rosenblatt all described interactivity in terms
of a transaction occurring between the reader and the text. As a medium, a book is not
interactive because it does not think or react; the interpretation of a text is thus one
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sided, purely on the part of the reader as he or she engages the text. In this limited
sense, watching television is a similar experience to reading a book. Although viewers
may react to an event described by a television program, the program does not react to
their experience. Although the telephone device itself does not provide for interactivity,
the use of the telephone offers the possibility of interactivity, as telephone technology
allows interaction within the cyberspace, the term William Gibson used to describe the
ether in which telephone calls occur that facilitates an interactive experience. By
connecting two thinking beings, any technology, including bulletin board systems (BBS),
chat rooms, forums, and IRC, MOOs, and MUDs provides the possibility of interactivity.
While tools connecting users in shared media spaces were being developed in
the early 1990s, the rapid development of graphics capabilities and hardware led to the
development of new kinds of space, and ultimately gave birth to virtual reality. These
spaces included multiuser dungeon/domains (MUDs) and MUD object-oriented domains
(MOOs), such as AlphaMOO and LambdaMOO, which emerged with advent of the first
stable network servers in 1990. Such spaces allowed users with only a computer and
access to the Internet to gain access to VWs. Although these early (and continuing)
efforts to create the ultimate sensory immersion depended on the use of hardware,
such as goggles, body suits, and projection caves, to engage as many senses as possible,
virtual reality as a concept cannot be reduced to hardware. In 1999 Steuer defined
virtual reality as “a real or simulated environment in which a perceiver experiences
telepresence,” which he defined as “the experience of presence in an environment by
means of a communication medium” (36–37).
24
Thus, the understanding of the concept of virtual progressed from an
understanding of the hardware involved toward that of the space between the user and
the technology in which the user’s sense of “being there” meets the feedback provided
by the technology in a loop between user perception and sensory feedback from the
system. Adding the concepts of interactivity—the manipulation of a media space and
the listen–think–speak loop—to the concepts of virtual reality and telepresence within a
space in which users can interface not only with the system itself but also with one
another leads to the development of a VW. The mix of these elements thus creates a
communication medium capable of creating another reality, or rather many realities.
Why Virtual Worlds are Different from Other Interactive Media
To understand the full impact of VWs as media, it is necessary to gain
understanding of how they diverge from the forms that came before them. In 1986, Jan
Bordewijk and Ben van Kaam developed the matrix shown in table 2-1 to classify the
four patterns of communication that existed at that time.
Table 2-1 Bordewijk and Kaam’s Matrix
Distribution controlled by a
Information produced by a
Information produced by
central provider
the consumer
Transmission
Registration
Consultation
Conversation
central provider
Distribution controlled by
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the consumer
Source: Bordewijk 163.
Prior to the advent of networked computers, most media, including television,
newspapers, and films, fell into the category of transmission media. As users requested
information from a central repository of information, databases created the possibility
for consultation, whereas feeding information into a database or similar system allowed
for registration, and the introduction of multiuser systems, such as BBSs, allowed for
conversation. In the late 1980s, these four patterns of communication accounted for all
technologically mediated communication.
MOOs and MUDs (which are considered VWs in this study) were the first spaces
in which these four communication patterns occurred simultaneously, and VW
technology was the first technology that included all four types of interactive media.
Today’s VWs are merely more complex, more graphically immersive versions of the
same communication model. For example, World of Warcraft, which was created by
Blizzard Entertainment and has become one of the most successful VWs, constitutes a
transmission medium because its software and servers are made available to users
through controlled channels. As users interact in the world, they call up information
from the game servers, allowing the world to react to the actions taken by the players.
Thus, play within the world can be compared to a request from a database and
considered a form of consultation. Meanwhile, the same servers are engaging in a form
of registration by collecting information about the user’s actions and storing it as data
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about the character/avatar that the player uses. Moreover, as World of Warcraft, is
multiuser, players can interact with one another via text chat to relay battle strategies
and character information, or simply to engage in conversation.
The Truths of Virtual Worlds
According to James’ definition, a VW is only truly a new reality if it contains
truths that are paradoxical or incompatible with the truths accepted in other worlds or
realities. The combination of telepresence, immersion, and multiple users within VWs
leads to the creation of several characteristics (“truths”) that differentiate VWs from
other forms of interactive media, which are described in the following sections.
Truth 1: Virtual Worlds Allow Users to Leave and Return to the Reality
Unlike being in the analog world, users can remove their being (i.e., avatar) from
a VW at will through methods other than death. Moreover, their being continues to
persist in the VW even when other users are not there without detriment to that being;
logging out of a VW simply causes the avatar to cease to exist until the user logs in
again. Unlike leaving the physical world, in which one is truly unable to remove one’s
being, as even death leaves behind a body and all its materiality, logging out of a VW
causes the being to truly cease to exist, but only until logging in brings it back.
Truth 2: Virtual World Users Contribute to the Reality by Constructing Their Avatars’
Stories
Because they can perform actions, avatars allow users to create their own story
within the story created by the VW producers. This form of storytelling can be seen best
27
on role-playing servers of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)
on which all players are expected to interact as their avatars’ characters rather than as
themselves. Players in these spaces often text chat in accents and use specialized
terminology created by the world’s developers. As others in a space construct their own
experience, the story of the world constantly changes as their actions are added to the
actions of others, contributing to the interactivity of the world itself.
Truth 3: Virtual World Users Form Shifting Parasocial Relationships with Their Avatars
As users imagine a relationship with their avatars that their avatars cannot
reciprocate, they form a parasocial relationship with their avatars. As described by
Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, a parasocial relationship is a “one-sided,
nondialectical relationship controlled by the performer, and not susceptible of mutual
development” (216). Having no feelings of their own and no autonomy, avatars act only
when controlled by the user, but possess abilities and knowledge that the user does not
possess; whereas an avatar in Second Life can fly and call material into existence with a
wave of a hand, the user behind that avatar cannot. The shifting parasocial relationship
simultaneously immerses the user in the space while repeatedly making him or her
aware of the interface that he or she is using to interact with the avatar.
Truth 4: Virtual Worlds Create Finite Spaces of Normative Technological Determinism
According to Oliver Bimber and Ramesh Raskar, the normative relationship
between technology and culture is cyclical, being part of a cycle in which new
technologies create new social norms that require new technologies in a never-ending
cycle (91). Nowhere is this cycle more clearly depicted than in a VW. The limitations of
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the world (e.g., whether users can fly or change their appearance) directly influences
the culture of the world, while changes in the mechanics directly contribute to the
culture developed within the space. Meanwhile, the growing demands of that culture
may require developers to augment the mechanics of the space or encourage users to
create hacks or add-ons to fulfill the mechanical requirements of the developing culture.
This list of truths unique to VWs is likely not exhaustive, as the technology is
rapidly developing, but suffices to illustrate that VWs are unique realities. Although the
argument that VWs constitute a new reality can be made by identifying the differences
between VWs and the technology and communication patterns that came before their
development, identifying whether the development of VWs constitutes a
communication revolution requires more investigation, as is provided in the following
section.
Kuhn’s Cycle of Scientific Revolution
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn provides a framework
with which to understand technological shift and put it into perspective. Kuhn describes
the process by which a scientific field undergoes a paradigm revolution as beginning
when an accepted, agreed-upon paradigm begins to be questioned with more frequency
as researchers uncover findings that do not agree with the field’s accepted “truths.” If
these challenges increase to a certain level, those who believe that an alternative
paradigm can explain these challenges use it to confront the previously accepted theory.
If the new paradigm gathers sufficient momentum and a sufficient number of members
29
of the field accept it, this new paradigm replaces the old, and the field returns once
again to a state of normalcy, as shown in fig. 2-1.
Fig. 0-1. Kuhn’s cycle of scientific revolution.
Kuhn’s cycle explains how fundamental scientific ideas change over time as
researchers begin to challenge underlying beliefs after collecting conflicting evidence.
However, the revolution related to VW research has taken a different form. Rather than
working from the same paradigms, VW researchers have focused their attention on the
same objects but from disparate points of view, as shown in fig. 2-2.
Rather than developing a body of challenges that would suggest a new paradigm,
VW researchers continue to work from disparate foundations that prevent them from
making progress within the field. These researchers do not even share a common
vocabulary; indeed, even the definition of the term VW remains a point of contention.
30
Without a shared foundation, proponents of varied paradigms “fail to make complete
contact with one another’s viewpoints” (Kuhn 147). It is as if their
Fig. 2-2. Breakdown in Kuhn’s cycle of scientific revolution.
conversations slide past one another only occasionally snagging one another for
purposes of disagreement or false comparisons.
It cannot be determined whether the development of VWs constitutes a
revolution, or even whether it conflicts with previous paradigms, if there is no process
by which to make this determination. The development of such a process begins with
the development of shared definitions.
The Development of Terminology
One’s suppositions about reality and perception of and access to reality
influences how one interprets and classifies the new. When encountering an object or
concept new to one’s experience, one reacts to its novelty by comparing it to objects or
31
concepts with which one is familiar. However, this process is not unique to the
individual; cultural and/or linguistic referents, stories, and the opinions of others who
have already encountered the new object or concept may all influence or supersede the
individual’s own experience. Even academic disciplines are built upon foundations of
reality and collections of experience. Acting as knowledge makers, researchers
attempting to explain a new phenomenon cannot help but see it through the reality of
their field, perceiving, defining, and classifying it according to their discipline’s rules and
viewing it through layers of personal, cultural, and disciplinary screens, thus making
their understanding unique. As they do so, they form terministic screens, for, as Kenneth
Burke explains,
We must use terministic screens, since we can’t say anything without the
use of terms; whatever terms we use, they necessarily constitute a
corresponding kind of screen; and any such screen directs the attention
to one field rather than another. (Language as Symbolic Action 50)
Kuhn explains that a surfeit of theories could actually impede researchers’
progress; as they cannot remove their discipline’s paradigms and assumptions from
their approach to research and interpretation of data, their theoretical assumptions
become nearly opaque screens. As the processes of understanding and defining are not
individual experiences, terms must be developed that function as symbolic shorthand
for a concept’s truth, as well as allow one to share a referred reality with others and/or
agree on a shared idea. Without such agreement, discussions consist of nothing but
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incommensurate ideas, and without shared definitions, no communication can occur
among individuals.
According to Kuhn, “Proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in
different worlds” (150). Although VW researchers might not have conflicting paradigms
(those that attempt to replace the existing paradigms in a field), they may come from
fields with assumptions that clash with one another (Kuhn 150). Establishing bridges
among incommensurate paradigms requires the development of transparent, easily
understood, shared terms that are not based on biases and assumptions, as well as a
taxonomy or classification system with which to refers to VWs that is as agnostic of
discipline as possible. Once developed and accepted, this shared terminology and
taxonomy will make connections among researchers and research fields clearer and
more meaningful.
Challenges in Researching Virtual Worlds
As online multiplayer games and immersive social environments have become
more advanced over the past decade, they have increasingly become the focus of
researchers. Borrowing from the fields of sociology, psychology, and communications,
researchers have applied preexisting methodologies, such as ethnography (Turkle),
rhetorical analysis (Squire), and participant observation (Gee), to study the spaces and
the interactions within them. However, these methods are limited to studying the
communication itself, and do not allow for analysis of the mechanics of the
environments that give rise to communication patterns (Consalvo and Dutton;
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Manninen; Squire). Truly understanding the new ways in which individuals communicate
in virtual environments requires observing the entire picture; viewing any one element
in isolation provides only a fragmented and inaccurate view of the communication that
is occurring.
A primary challenge in investigating VWs is the ever-shifting nature of VW
technology. Virtual spaces do not follow a prescriptive pattern of development. As is
required to succeed in the market, each new environment boasts new developments
(e.g., avatar customization and object creation) and channels of communication, all of
which complicate understanding of what is occurring within the spaces. This difficulty is
compounded by the fact that the current methods used to categorize communication
are not capable of shifting with changing technology.
Examining the forms of communication that occur within these spaces requires
less focus on what has been done and more on what can be done, which requires
rhetorical thinking. One must consider the motives present in the gap between the laws
(environmental mechanics made possible by the software of the environment) and the
rules (norms and uses established by the developing communicative culture in a space),
as it is this space between what is possible and what has been achieved that reveals the
potential. Before doing so, one must gain understanding of the steps in the
development of these spaces.
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Growth of Virtual Worlds
Whether it is via the technicalities of language, nonverbal cues, written media, or
digital forms, understanding the ways in which communication occurs is key to
unpacking the meanings in the messages themselves. As most individuals have a good
understanding of their mitigating mechanics, a rhetorical analysis of most forms of
media is not required; newspaper coverage, for example, need not include a detailed
explanation of the implications of black text on a white background. One functions
under the sound assumption that, as Marshall McLuhan stated so well, “the medium is
the message” (7). Therefore, when faced with a new medium of communication, one
can only unpack a medium’s mechanics to examine the acts of communication that
occur within the medium by gaining a thorough understanding of the medium.
With the advent of the personal computer and network technologies, human
communication has moved into new forms at unprecedented speed. Although the
speed at which technology has advanced has prevented many scholars from gaining a
comprehensive understanding of VWs, most agree that the concept of a VW began with
Trubshaw and Bartle’s development of the first multiuser dungeon/domain (MUD) in
1978 (Kelly). Referred to as MUD-1, their creation was the first that allowed a large
number of users to share an experience, albeit a text-based one, within an imagined
space. By creating characters with which to explore and socialize and using text to
emote and act, users generated a sense of shared presence.
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In the 1980s, the MUD experience became more visual with the advent of basic
graphical spaces. Randall Farmer and Chip Morningstar developed Habitat, the first
commercially distributed graphical MUD, which later became DreamScape and was
bought by Fujitsu. Before Habitat, MUD users who wished to create custom content
could only write a textual description of their character or of an imagined space. By
providing them with basic graphical spaces, Habitat allowed users to create custom
avatars from a selection of body parts, and even allowed them to decorate a virtual
apartment with a selection of objects.
Later developments in immersive graphics, a hardware-driven concept referring
to an immersive visual experience created by goggles and other sensory equipment
intended to make the user feel immersed, can be found in virtual reality. However, VW
technology moved away from hardware, which was cumbersome and expensive, to
focus on the worlds themselves to develop spaces that offer usable tools and enjoyable
experiences. Virtual became a term applicable to any technology that offered digital
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Fig. 2-3. A typical scene in Habitat from Chip Morningstar and Randall Farmer, “The
Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat,” in Michael Benedikt (ed.), Cyberspace: First Steps,
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990.
simulations of space and time, while the term virtual reality yielded to the term VW,
only to become a term of contention and broad misuse.
Only recently has there been an effort to agree on a shared definition of VW,
which requires standardizing the terms used by those in the fields of gaming,
communication, and technology software and hardware. Early definitions, which were
based on developments in contemporary software and hardware, were not sufficiently
flexible to accommodate later developments. What is currently required are definitions
sufficiently specific to be meaningful yet sufficiently wide to accommodate variations in
technology, user motivations, and platforms. As gaining understanding of the
contentious terms whose use scholars have debated within digital conversations and
the points of disagreement among these scholars sets the stage for further study, this
section describes several of these issues.
In December 2006, Timothy Burke posted an entry on Terra Nova, a well-known
blog written by an international community of gaming scholars, in which he instigated a
discussion regarding the history of VWs. Several dozen comments flowed in quick
succession regarding the need to define what a VW was before a history could be
established. Several referred to Raph Koster’s Online World Timeline as the definitive
source for the roots, and thus the common characteristics, of VWs.
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However, tracing the important ideas that led to the development of MOOs and
MUDS does not elucidate what these worlds have become. When, in the comments
section of T. Burke’s Terra Nova post, Bartle pressed Damer to share his definition of a
VW, Damer responded, “A text-based MUD is one, right? A first person shooter? A chat
room? Second Life or Active Worlds? Better still, what is NOT a virtual world?” The
discussion continued with many comments referencing other sources, offering up
qualities that should or should not be included in the definition. After several days, the
comments slowed and then stopped without the issue being resolved.
Six months later, Koster posted his definition of a VW: “A simulation of
persistent space connected via a network, wherein users are represented by proxies
often termed avatars” (What Is a Virtual World?). In response, commenters questioned
whether the term network adequately describes a large-scale world and, because game
worlds are so prevalent, whether a phrase should be added regarding game-playing or
role-playing. Soon after, Grace McDunnough summarized her definition of a VW as a
space for (a) socialization (b) immersive and participatory media, and (c) a marketplace.
Her posting received a cold reception due to its emphasis on the content of the world
and not the mechanics of its creation.
In 2007, Aaron Delwiche created a blog post entitled the “Four Traits of MUDS
(and virtual worlds)” in which he listed the traits as follows:
1. Immersion in a synthetic world created entirely through computer-mediated
representations.
38
2. User embodiment in the synthetic world in the form of game characters
called avatars.
3. The copresence of multiple users in the synthetic world.
4. The ability of user-controlled avatars to make persistent changes to the
shared world entirely as a result of their in-world behaviors.
Delwiche differentiated between game worlds and social worlds while acknowledging
that they often overlap. Despite the specificity of his definition, the community reacted
negatively to his inclusion of “persistent changes” because it excluded many social
worlds in which users do not have the ability to build and/or decorate the world, as well
as gaming worlds in which the changes that users can make are only temporary.
Operational Definition of Virtual Worlds
The fact that the debate regarding a definitive list of VW traits continues is a
powerful indication of just how nascent the field remains. Must a VW be graphical?
Must a space be inhabited by millions of users to be considered a “world”? The debate
continues because the objects of study are often too diverse to be compared,
preventing the scholarly discussions from assuming the form of meaningful
conversation. Moreover, despite the increased publication of the results of VW
research, especially into gaming spaces, over the last few years, the field remains
sufficiently novel that scholars are still working with operational definitions that often
differ from one study to another. To prevent any confusion resulting from such
differences, this study defines a VW as consisting of the following four traits:
39
1. Having persistence: A VW cannot be paused; it exists whether or not a user is
logged into it.
2. Being multiuser: A VW must be populated or at least have the potential for
being populated.
3. Allowing for the creation of avatars: Rather than using an icon to represent a
user, a VW allows a user to create an avatar, an agent that takes action. This
representation of the user can perform actions that the user requests, such
as fighting, expressing emotion, or simply moving through a space.
4. Being facilitated via a wide area network: A VW is facilitated via a wide area
network rather than a local network. As they are free from the confines of
and limited access provided by a locally hosted space, VWs have the
potential to become global and very large.
Although these traits are necessary but not sufficient to characterize a space as a
VW, it does serve to eliminate spaces that are not worlds, which allowed for the
identification of spaces from the study sample that might have skewed the findings. For
example, some scholars refer to spaces such as Facebook as a VW simply because they
are online and large. However, the inclusion of spaces that fall outside this study’s
operational definition of a VW, such as Facebook, would have prevented the facets
developed in this work from being sufficiently concise to be functional. This definition
will function as the operational definition for this work.
Examining previous research illuminates how scholarly analysis of virtual
environments has been impeded by a lack of clearly defined communication mechanics.
40
Nick Yee conducted a survey of MMORPG players (n = 2846) from various MMORPGs
(Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, and Star Wars Galaxies) to explore how relationships
form between players, the way in which players explore their roles in those
relationships, and how those relationships impact the acquisition of new skills. Yee’s
survey has a significant number of respondents from various MMORPGs (Everquest,
Dark Age of Camelot, and Star Wars Galaxies) and yet, his interpretation of the survey
results did not take into account the differences between the mechanics of each space
and how those mechanics encourage, discourage, or complicate relationship formation
and communication among players. When Sang Min Whang and Kim examined the
results of a large survey of Lineage and Everquest players to compare their views of the
games, they found that the users of one game were more engaged in the actual game
playing, whereas the users of the other treated the gaming environment as a social
space that simply happened to contain gaming mechanics. Despite this finding, they
simply stated that the spaces were similar in terms of mechanics, and did not explain
how the mechanics of each space might contribute to the differences in their use (787).
Although studies such as Whang and Kim’s were not necessarily fundamentally flawed,
their lack of discussion and consideration regarding the mechanics of communication in
the spaces reveals a lack of richness in the discussions of the findings, and perhaps even
in the design of the research itself. Each of the studies operationalizes VW in a different
way. Thus, their findings are incommensurate.
41
Communication within Virtual Worlds
The research into VWs is often categorized with the research into gaming due to
the fact that gaming has been the most prevalent manifestation of such spaces. Game
studies is a complex field, consisting of those who study games (i.e., how play functions
to motivate the player), those who study games as cultural artifacts (i.e., how games
represent the culture that creates them), and those who study how games may be used
for education and training. Despite their differences, they all focus on results of the
game’s use rather than the game itself. That is, these studies neglect examination of the
mechanics of the gaming environment as an object and the influence of the materiality
of the space on the user and the communication products that result.
Added to this challenge is the fact that the line between a “game” and a “nongame” is becoming blurred with the development of new environments such as Second
Life, There, and Multiverse. These spaces share common characteristics with MMORPG
environments, such as World of Warcraft and Runescape, but contain elements not
present in those spaces, such as freeform object creation, unlimited avatar
customization, and stigmergic environments, defined as persistent spaces that can be
altered by the user in ways that are visible to others. Aside from studying the elements
of play involved in the puzzle-like nature of games, researchers have studied multiuser
virtual environments (MUVE) to investigate the new communities, arenas of
socialization, and cultures that all develop directly out of the forms of communication
enabled by the environment. Just as the use of the telephone has informed and changed
42
speech patterns and as the use of e-mail has evolved to express emotion via emoticons,
the use of various means of communication within virtual environments has affected
the behaviors and cultures that develop within them.
Communicative Action Theory
Several researchers have begun to analyze the forms of communication present
in virtual environments. Manninen, one such researcher, used Habermas’
Communicative Action Theory (CAT) as a framework to understand communication in
virtual environments. Based on the assumption that all communication is social, CAT
attempts to arrive at a mutual understanding between those who engage in six types of
communication:
1. Instrumental communication.
2. Strategic communication.
3. Normatively regulated communication.
4. Dramaturgical communication.
5. Communicative communication.
6. Discursive communication.
Habermas intended the CAT model to be used to categorize the purpose behind
communication and the goals of the communicator (Manninen). Although Manninen’s
application of CAT is useful in categorizing communication within VWs, it does not allow
for description of the entire space. For example, Manninen described avatar appearance
as a form of instrumental communication, as it is “the realization of a goal by selecting
43
just one action from a set of alternative actions”. However, in his discussion of
appearance, Manninen considered neither the number of options available to the user
nor the reasons behind the selection of a particular option, such as whether a user
decides to “wear” armor to gain a distinct advantage in battle or merely to look more
intimidating. In one setting, these choices can have more limitations, more implications,
and more importance, depending on the function that the decisions serve given the
mechanics of the environment. Determining the nature of the factors behind such
decisions requires close examination of the mechanics of the environment that allows
for choices or prohibits them from being made.
Activity Theory
According to Squire, Yrjö Engestrom’s activity theory can be used to explain how
player communications are influenced by the environment, as it allows for consideration
of a user’s interaction with objects in the environment and other members of the
community (9). Specifically, activity theory proposes that “the minimal meaningful
context is the dialectical relations between human agents (subjects) and that which they
act upon (objects) as they are mediated by tools, language, and socio-cultural context”
(9). Squire explained that unlike CAT, activity theory allows game researchers to
understand the way the game “mediates players’ understandings of other phenomena
while acknowledging the social and cultural context in which the game is situated” (10).
However, activity theory does not consider the mechanics of the environment as a
factor in the communication that results from an activity, and Squire presented no
44
means of examining how the environment acts upon the user. However, as is explained
in chapter four, providing a more thorough understanding of the communication
mechanics within a VW to Activity Theory provides a useful tool for the analysis of VW
learning activities.
Other Methodological Toolkits
In another attempt to develop a method for understanding communication in
virtual game environments, Mia Consalvo and Nathan Dutton offered a solution to the
problems present in previous gaming studies, which they claimed had “taken two
approaches—either studies of the audience for games or critiques of the games
themselves” (1). Their approach treats the game as a text to be analyzed via the
development of an (a) object inventory, (b) an interface study, (c) an interaction map, or
(d) a gameplaying log, and its subsequent application to various games to test its
usefulness. However, even an interface study that might be capable of analyzing the
mechanics of an environment that allows for communication only treats the interface as
a symbolic text that can be deconstructed to understand social and cultural beliefs
woven into the game’s tools. Moreover, Consalvo and Dutton did not consider how one
or more of their methods used together might illuminate how, for example, the
interface mediates the use of the space, including how players communicate with one
another.
Although the criticism of the studies described here is certainly not exhaustive of
all criticism of VW research, it is representative of it. To the best of the author’s
45
knowledge, no study to date has considered the mechanics of a virtual space at the level
necessary to gain understanding of its influence on a specific system. This study
endeavors to fill this research gap by developing a taxonomy that can be used to
describe and analyze the mechanics of communication in virtual spaces, whether they
are gaming environments, collaborative virtual environments, blogs, wikis, or new
spaces that emerge in the future.
This research is thus based on the author’s belief that the development of a
thorough taxonomy is the best way to build a foundation for the field and a common
ground for the discussions that will no doubt continue as these spaces become ever
more popular and important in the lives of so many. Doing so is particularly important
due to the fact that no currently used method of analysis can adequately begin
scaffolding the differences among these environments, classify their mechanics to bring
their differences and similarities into focus, or analyze the remaining elements of the
environments and the lives that interact within them. The development of this
taxonomy begins with a description of Ranganathan’s faceted classification method in
the following chapter.
Chapter 3: Classification of Virtual Worlds
Faceted Classification
In the early 1930s, the Indian library scientist Ranganathan attempted to develop
a library classification system that was more flexible than the widely used Dewey
Decimal System, which was based on only 10 main classes, and would allow for the
drawing of meaningful relationships between works beyond relationships between their
subject areas. The result of his efforts was the faceted classification approach, an
approach later developed into the Colon Classification system, a library system widely
used in India and influential in the development of the Library of Congress classification
system. Susan Herring described the faceted classification approach and its advantages
as follows:
Ranganathan described the faceted classification method as analyticosynthetic: A subject domain is first analyzed into component facets, and
relevant facets are then synthesized into combinations to characterize
items of interest. . . . The flexibility of faceted classification lies in its
ability to describe a large number of items with the subject domain,
including novel items, on the basis of a relatively economical, pre-defined
set of facets and terms. (6)
In a more detailed description of faceted classification, Spiteri described it as a
process involving three planes: (a) the idea plane, in which qualities to be classified are
analyzed; (b) the verbal plane, in which qualities to be used in the scheme are identified
47
and categories of qualities are created; and (c) the notational plane, in which the
hierarchy or possible groupings of facets to be used within a notational system are
defined.
Faceted classification is used to categorize and analyze objects such as data
points, library books, and other objects that need to be easily sorted, compared, and
differentiated. As such, faceted classification allows for the analysis of a large number of
objects with varied attributes and their classification according to a scheme that permits
their easy, meaningful comparison. For example, a Colon Classification representation
for a book regarding English knitting techniques and wool production written in 1942
would be classified into the following categories: craft (main topic): needle crafts (sub
area): knitting (specific craft): England (geographic): 1942 (year): wool (specific subject
covered).
The usefulness of Ranganathan’s scheme lies in the fact that reference to of its
facets, such as “England: 1942: wool” might yield other English knitting books from the
World War II era, as well as articles and books about fabrics used for military uniforms
or sheep farming. As shown by this example, the use of faceted classification directs
users to associated information that they might otherwise have overlooked had the
Dewey Decimal System been used, as faceted classification places each item in a richer
context than a typical taxonomy and allows for cross referencing through common
traits.
Limiting her research into faceted classification to the basic traits of computermediated communication (CMC), which she defined as the “medium (technological) and
48
situation (social)” (6), Herring aimed to provide a foundation for the addition of further
facets that apply to chat, email, instant messaging, and other common forms of CMC.
Herring also endeavored to create a system with which the communication itself could
be classified by social purpose. Herring’s application of Ranganathan’s schema stopped
short of developing conventions for naming types of objects (CMC arenas) through a
colon classification label that might be used as a type of descriptive shorthand by
others, an endeavor that this study undertook.
Although Ranganathan developed faceted classification as a classification system
for libraries, this method has been applied and adapted to accommodate many different
sets of objects since its inception. Many relational database systems developed to
provide rapid access use a faceted classification approach to maintain a variable
structure. The complexity, variety, and novelty of VWs have impeded the analysis and
classification of the subtle differences among them and the manner in which their users
inhabit them. Constructing a faceted classification of VWs would provide a means of
examining the intricacies of the social interaction, learning, and other activities that
occur within VWs.
Facet Identification
The first step in this research was identifying the environments that meet the
definition of VWs provided in chapter two. The researcher reviewed over 70 worlds of
various genres that had been developed in different countries and whose users greatly
varied in their demographic characteristics to analyze the mechanics related to
49
communication contained within each world (see Appendix A). The researcher identified
the worlds by referring to lists such as The Virtual World Review
(virtualworldsreview.com/info/categories.shtml) and blogs such as Terra Nova
(terranova.blogs.com), Massively (massively.com) and Joystiq (joystiq.com), which are
considered reputable sources of information regarding the development of new VWs.
When possible, the researcher created an avatar within a VW to explore the world’s
mechanics, spent sufficient time within the world to experience the mechanics and
observe other users, and conducted casual interactions with more experienced users to
ensure that her perceptions of the mechanics were accurate. If creating an account for a
VW was impossible due to language barriers or expense or if no reliable account of the
world’s mechanics existed, the researcher did not include the world in this study.
Analysis of the traits of VWs allowed the researcher to identify the following six
characteristics shared by the majority of the worlds and all of which contribute to the
forms of communication possible within the worlds. None of these traits is external to
the world itself or unrelated to communication in the world.
1. Uses an operating system, whether a Mac, Windows, or Linux operating
system.
2. Provides delivery media via download, CD, and/or DVD.
3. Provides external community communication methods, such as fan sites and
discussion forums.
4. Delivers messages, such as system messages and status updates, to users
from the company.
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5. Supports multiple languages.
6. Specifies the number of groups that can be joined simultaneously.
The researcher compared the 10 traits to Spiteri’s guidelines for facets to ensure
that they fulfill the requirements of a functioning classification system. According to
Spiteri’s approach to classification, the facets should adhere to the following principles:

Differentiation: “When dividing an entity into its component parts, it is
important to use characteristics of division (i.e., facets) that will distinguish
clearly among these component parts” (5).

Relevance: “When choosing facets by which to divide entities, it is important
to make sure that the facets reflect the purpose, subject, and scope of the
classification system” (6).

Ascertainability: “It is important to choose facets that are definite and can be
ascertained” (6).

Permanence: Facets should “represent permanent qualities of the item being
divided” (18).

Homogeneity: “Facets must be homogeneous” (18).

Mutual exclusivity: Facets must be “mutually exclusive . . . . Each facet must
represent only one characteristic of division” (18).

Fundamental categories: “There exist no categories that are fundamental to
all subjects. . . . Categories should be derived based upon the nature of the
subject being classified” (18–19).
51
In her discussion of the verbal plane, Spiteri stressed that the terminology used
in reference to the facets should adhere to standards of context such that “the meaning
of an individual term is given its context based upon its position in the classification
system” and standards of currency such that “the terminology used in a classification
system should reflect current usage in the subject field” (11). Developing a functional list
of facets is critical to classifying existing VWs and understanding those developed in the
future. If the correct facets surface from the analysis described by Spiteri, the
classification system that results will provide a useful and comprehensive means of
describing any VW meeting the operational definition provided in chapter two.
The following ten facets and their subcategories meet Spiteri’s guidelines for
both the idea plane and the verbal plane.
Facet 1: Dominant Form of Content
VWs originated as MOOs and MUDs within text-based environments before
evolving (along with the technology) into visually immersive spaces in which text is only
used for communication between users rather than as a mode with which to create the
space itself. Although few of the spaces that currently exist are text based, the vast
differences between these spaces and their visually based equivalents is critical and
cannot be ignored. The following are the major categories of environments by dominant
form of content:

Text-dominant environments: These environments use text as the primary
form of content. They may also use text to describe the environment, as do
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MOOs and MUDs, and might contain images, such as user icons, but have
little meaning without text. LinguaMoo and LambdaMoo are considered two
of the most populated, longest living MOOs. Many universities still use
MOOs and MUDs as teaching tools, as does Northwestern University with its
Diversity University MOO.

Image-dominant environments: Ranging from immersive environments such
as There to Disney Toontown, these environments use graphics to convey
important meaning in the space and cannot exist without the graphics. Text
may be present in these environments, but it is always secondary to image.
Facet 2: Dominant Form of User-to-User Communication
Maintaining interactivity between users is a critical requirement for establishing
telepresence in a multiuser environment. The ability to easily share information with
others contributes to successful play in gaming worlds, as well as to building social ties
between users through information sharing in both gaming and social worlds. The
methods with which users communicate with one another influence how this
information exchange occurs and its effect on cultural developments unique to the VW.
The following are the major categories of environments by dominant form of user-touser communication:

Text-dominant environments: Text is by far the most common user-to-user
communication tool in VWs. Users communicate via text systems, such as
proximal text chat, and closed channels, such as instant messaging and group
53
chat channels. Worlds such as FreeRealms and Club Penguin offer modified
text chat that utilizes a preset collection of phrases rather than free-form
typing to ensure that minors who enter these worlds cannot share personal
information and put themselves at risk.

Voice-dominant environments: If voice capabilities are embedded within the
VW or if users can use third-party software to augment the communication
tools provided with voice capabilities, users communicate with one another
via voice chat, both public and private. Voice capabilities are most often
integrated into social VWs intended for business use (such as ExitReality),
but were recently added to World of Warcraft and City of Heroes.

Combination environments: In some environments, users use both voice and
text, depending on the social situation.
Facet 3: Level of Stigmergy
A concept developed by entomologist Pierre-Paul Grasse to describe indirect
communication among termites in an insect colony, stigmergy refers to the ability to
manipulate an environment to communicate with others in a space, such as the ability
of ants to leave chemical trails to alert others of the location of food sources (Dron). In
terms of digital resources, stigmergy has been discussed in terms of exploring how
resources can be sorted and valued based on user reviews and evolutionary processes.
When applied to VWs, stigmergy refers to the ability to create lasting content. The
following are the major categories of environments by level of stigmergy:
54

Stigmergic environments: In these environments, users can make changes to
the environment that remain from one use to another. Multiuser stigmergic
environments allow users to leave messages and other forms of
communication for other users to find when they log in later. Examples of
these environments are Metaplace and Second Life.

Nonstigmergic environments: In these environments, users are unable to
make changes to the environment or the changes that they make are
reverted by the environment. For example, if a user logs off of World of
Warcraft after defeating enemies who blipped off the screen, the user will
find that those same enemies will have repopulated the environment after
he or she logs in at a later time.

Limited stigmergy environments: In these environments, users can craft
unique items or combine a limited scope of materials, such as in worlds in
which users may own houses (or similar private spaces) and decorate them
with precreated objects.
Facet 4: Level of Object Ownership
Within each VW is a developing culture and economy based on the behavior and
objects valued within the world’s system of laws. VWs that function like wikis by
allowing anyone to edit anything at any time have a vastly different set of values and
communication practices than do worlds in which all items are earned through battle or
similar achievements. Differentiating between spaces in which users share resources
55
and spaces in which users compete for them provides significant insight into how and
why users communicate within these spaces. The following are the major categories of
environments by level of object ownership:

Private ownership environments: In these environments, users can “own”
objects (or data) and limit others’ access to them. In gaming environments,
private ownership may mean that users have a private inventory of items
that only they can access.

Nonownership environments: In these environments, users cannot “own”
objects (or data), and thus have no “inventory” of their own.

Shared ownership environments: In these environments, items can
simultaneously and equally belong to more than one user.
Facet 5: Level of User Identity Formation
In her discussion of chatroom and MUD users, Sherry Turkle provided initial
insights into how users might be reinventing themselves using virtual spaces:
The anonymity of MUDs—one is known on the MUD only by the name of
one’s character or characters—gives individuals the chance to express
multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their
identity and try out new ones. MUDs make possible the creation of an
identity so fluid and multiple that it strains the limits of the notion. (12)
In an account of his own experiences in Second Life, Julian Dibbell described one user’s
development of identity in a system that allows the use of infinitely customizable
56
avatars with which users could communicate via virtual bodies (241). Because avatars in
such a system become a text to be read and interpreted by others, avatars that cannot
be changed only allow users to communicate through more limited channels. The
following are the major categories of environments by level of user identity formation:

Static environments: In these environments, user identity is created by the
environment and cannot be changed. Users have no choice of who they are
as users, or have no identity at all.

Custom environments: In these environments, users can easily customize
their identity using the environment’s system. Environments such as MOOs
and There allow users to augment their identity; choose their name; and
create an identity through their clothing, objects, and persistent profiles.
Second Life contains the most customizable avatars of all currently existing
VWs.

Conditional environments: In these environments, user identity develops
through environmental variables, such as goals and status. When an
environment only allows for conditional identity development, it often
allows only customization with items that are earned or by users who have
achieved a certain status. For example, in Star Wars Galaxies, users may only
wear the armor intended for their character class, and changing certain
attributes of their character’s appearance may cost so much money that less
accomplished players may not be able to afford the services. In these
57
environments, character identity is often closely related to status according
the goals of the environment.
Facet 6: Level of Environmental Access
The manner in which access is gained to a VW not only controls who can utilize
the space but also the number of users and the extent to which the space is exclusive or
open. The following are the major categories of environments by level of environmental
access:

Public environments: In these environments, access is open to anyone and
does not require the granting of permission. Even if access requires payment
or the purchase of software, as do many gaming environments, the
environment is still open to anyone who wishes to join by creating an
account, purchasing software, or otherwise doing what is necessary to access
the environment. Other environments merely require providing an e-mail
address and completing a profile, as do MetaPlace and There. No permission
is necessary to gain access to these groups.

Fee-based environments: In these environments, access is open to anyone
but requires the payment of a monthly fee, as do World of Warcraft and
Warhammer Online.

Private environments: In these environments, access is limited to those
granted access through a special procedure, as do VWs in closed beta mode,
58
which are limited to invited participants, and spaces such as Second Life’s
Teen Grid, which require background checks and other procedures.
Facet 7: Nature of User Relationship With Other Users
Whether the world is one of high fantasy, futuristic scientific technology, or
contemporary life, an integral part of entering a VW is communicating with other users.
As such, the ability to form friendships and alliances, as well as compete against one
another as deadly foes, enriches the experience in VWs in powerful ways. The following
are the major categories of environments by nature of user relationship with other
users:

Collaborative environments: In these environments, users collaborate with
each other in a noncompetitive manner. Environments such as Second Life,
where competing in battle and other aggressive forms of interaction must be
agreed to by both parties and is not a required part of the environment, are
also considered collaborative.

Competitive environments: In these environments, competition between
users is a required element and is part of the environment’s goals. Games in
which players must compete against one another or lose through inactivity
are included in this category. Some environments, such as sports games and
fighting games, do not allow players to opt out of competition.

Conditional environments: In these environments, users are collaborative or
antagonistic with other users, depending on the situation. These
59
environments include games in which players may choose to fight enemies
provided by the system or to fight each other in what are referred to as
player vs. player (PVP) games. For example, players in Star Wars Galaxies and
World of Warcraft may attack one another in specified areas of the gaming
world.
Facet 8: Nature of User Relationship With the Environment
Whether peaceful and bucolic or gritty and dangerous, the user’s relationship to
and immersion within a VW directly contributes to a sense of presence in the space and
the reality of the world itself. The following are the major categories of environments by
nature of user relationship with the environment:

Collaborative environments: In these environments, users collaborate with
the environment, which poses no danger to them. Wikis, blogs, and other
environments not considered games fit into this category, as well as
immersive spaces such as Second Life and There.

Competitive environments: In these environments, the environment’s system
provides enemies against whom the user competes. Most gaming spaces
have antagonistic environments, typically manifested in the form of “mobs”
of aggressive nonplayer characters, unless they provide for competition
between users.

Conditional environments: In these environments, users are collaborative or
antagonistic with the environment, depending on the situation.
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Environments such as World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies often
provide nonplayer characters who might assist players if that player’s
“faction” points have reached a threshold level that “earns” the trust or
support of nonplayer character population.
Facet 9: Level of Access to Groups
The presence of long-term, formalized relationships in VWs is more than an
overt sign of committed friendships. Belonging to a long-term user-organized group
makes social ties more concrete, especially in a world in which access to groups is
acquired only by permission and/or earned. The following are the major categories of
environments by level of access to groups:

Public environments: In these environments, users may join any group.

Private environments: In these environments, users can only join groups if
invited to do so.

Nongroup environments: These environments do not allow for the formation
of groups.
Facet 10: Number of Groups That Can Be Joined Simultaneously
VWs may make membership in groups unlimited or restricted. Allowing
membership in multiple groups leads to the formation of groups that are less formal and
whose members are less committed to them, whereas limiting membership leads to the
formation of groups that are more formal and whose members are more committed to
them. For example, because Second Life does not limit group membership, many store
61
owners issue blanket group invitations to anyone who enters their stores, leading to the
creation of informal groups. The following are the major categories of environments by
number of groups that can be joined simultaneously:

Nongroup environments: These environments do not allow for the formation
of groups.

Single-group environments: In these environments, users may only join one
group at a time.

Multigroup environments: In these environments, users may be members of
multiple groups simultaneously.
Development of a Notational System
The final step of the faceted classification is to determine a notational system by
which items may be referred to in a systematic manner. However, because this step is
primarily intended to provide a file or storage system, this step was adapted to the
purpose of this study, which was to use the faceted classification as a comparison
scheme. Therefore, rather than beginning by determining a set order in which the facets
should be listed as a description (i.e., moving from the most general to most specific
facet when classifying each world), this study began by determining the most relevant
feature of each world. Following Ranganathan’s nomenclature, the first facet was listed
as a parent category, allowing for identification of the most important category as the
parent category. For example, rather than classifying World of Warcraft as
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Image>Multimodal>Nonstigmergic>Private>Fee>Situational>Scenariobased>Causal>Single Group>Invitation
in accordance with the listing of facets in table 3.1, the identity formation systems
within a set can be reorganized so that Identity Formation becomes the parent facet and
the other facets become secondary facets. World of Warcraft then becomes classified as
Causal >Single Group>Image>Multi-modal>Nonstigmergic>Private>Fee>
Situational>Scenario-based
and can easily be compared to another world with conditional identity formation to
better isolate their differences and similarities. This variable-parent approach makes the
classification more useful than simply sorting the items in the set.
Table 3-1 Results of Bivariate Comparison of VW Facets
Form of content
-1 = text
0 = text and image
1=image
User-to-user
communication
-1 = text
0= text, voice and/or
visual
1= voice
Level of stigmergy
-1 = no
stigmergy
0 = limited stigmergy
1=stigmergy
Level of object
ownership
-1 = private or
no objects
0 = limited sharing
1= public
Level of access
-1 = private
0= membership fee
1= public
User-to-user
relationship
-1 =
collaborative
0= conditional
1= competitive
User-toenvironment
-1 =
0= conditional
1= competitive
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relationship
collaborative
Number of groups
that can be joined
Level of identity
formation
Level of group
access
-1 = none
0= one
1= multiple
-1= static
0= conditional
1= custom
-1 = none
0 = permission
1= open
Having developed a taxonomy with which to compare VWs, this study can now
proceed to the application of the facets to shed new light into existing VW scholarship.
Bivariate Comparison of Virtual Worlds
Although there are broad differences among the VWs classified for this study,
there are also interesting patterns of similarities among them. By converting the facets
to discreet quantitative values, as shown in table 3-1, their differences and similarities,
as well as the gaps in their development, can be identified. Note that due to the use of
discrete variables, each visible data point on the graph may represent a stack of many
data points.
Empty quadrants in the bivariate charts indicate the combinations of facets that
do not currently exist in the realm of VW development. These gaps raise questions
about the desirability of those combinations or other factors that might inhibit the
development of worlds with those facets. To address these questions, the facets
included in the bivariate comparison and each quadrant’s combination of those facets,
as well as the VWs that fall into each quadrant and the intercepts between them, were
explored to address the following research questions:
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1. For quadrants containing no facets: Why are there no worlds that fall into
this quadrant?
2. For quadrants containing many facets: Is there a development opportunity
for this combination of facets or is there a valid reason for not combining
these facets?
3. How would a world with a particular combination of characteristics appear?
Would it be useful for entertainment or educational purposes?
Level of Stigmergy vs. Level of Object Ownership
Fig. 3.1 shows the classification of VWs into quadrants according to their levels
of stigmergy and object ownership. As previously discussed, level of stigmergy refers to
the ability to manipulate an environment in a lasting manner, such as the ability to
construct buildings and erect signs within a VWs, and level of object ownership refers to
the extent to which users can share objects in their inventory with other users (i.e.,
whether one object can coexist within more than one inventory or is accessible by more
than one user in the environment). Quadrants I and IV illustrate that no VWs have truly
open object sharing regardless of level of stigmergy. Quadrant III is indicative of worlds
such as World of Warcraft in which users are unable to create lasting content and
objects are only truly owned by one user. Although World of Warcraft offers a shared
“guild bank,” a form of “safe deposit box” that multiple users can access, no one object
can simultaneously reside within more than one inventory, and once an object leaves
the shared guild space it becomes the property of one user. Quadrant IV includes worlds
in which users can create content but cannot co-own this content with other users. The
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SIMS Online would fall into this quadrant, as users in this world can create, sell, and give
away the unique objects that they create but cannot co-own any iteration of these
objects.
Worlds with limited levels of stigmergy, such as Ultima Online, allow users to
create specific custom items. For example, Ultima Online users may create “runes” in
which to write text and then display in public spaces as a form of advertising, as well as
Fig. 3-1. Classification of VWs into quadrants by levels of stigmergy and object
ownership. Quadrants I and IV illustrate that no VWs have truly open object sharing
regardless of stigmergy.
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clubhouses in which their guilds can share content and log on and off safely, thus
providing a shared common space in which guild members may strengthen their social
ties (Koivisto).
This comparison indicates the lack of worlds in which objects can be freely and
consistently shared among all users, which may be related to the way in which data are
stored in VWs. That is, because objects are described in databases by their attributes
and location rather than by their ownership data, they are difficult to manage,
regardless of whether they are user created or system created. In addition, worlds that
have gaming mechanics typically have an economy related to objects based on their
usefulness and rarity that requires limiting access, as the objects offered by the
economy would have little value if they were equally accessible to all users. Indeed,
limiting access to these objects is an integral part of game play.
An environment with unlimited stigmergy and true object sharing such that
every user can edit and manipulate every object would be a world that resembles a wiki.
As shown in fig. 3-2, Quadrant I is empty, indicating that there are currently no worlds in
which these two facets coexist. This gap is interesting because it implies that the same
community trust and accountability that allows sites such as Wikipedia to empower a
community to contribute to a common goal (i.e., an amateur-created yet welldocumented encyclopedia) has yet to develop within a VW space. Although there are
open-source worlds, such as Qwak and Croquet, their level of crowd-sourcing ends at
their programming.
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The reason for such lack of openness is that the implementation of VWs does not
allow for open development. As objects in VWs are much more complex than are text
objects that are crowd-edited in a wiki, enabling all users to engage in object creation
and editing would require a level of programming and version control more complex
than any current VW currently provides. Until object creation is simplified, enabling such
openness is impossible.
Level of Stigmergy vs. Level of Identity Formation
Quadrant IV illustrates that stigmergic environments will most often extend
custom content creation to identity as well as environmental elements. Identity
formation in a VW ranges from selecting a character from a predefined set of bodies, as
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Fig. 3-2. Classification of VWs into quadrants by levels of stigmergy and identify
formation. Quadrant IV illustrates that stigmergic environments will most often extend
custom content creation to identity as well as environmental elements.
can users in MTV’s Virtual Lower East Side, to creating fully customized and flexible
avatars, as can users in Second Life. There are user benefits and challenges at both ends
of this spectrum. At the predefined end of the spectrum, static avatars are more easily
understood by other users in a VW. For example, if character classes are assigned to
specific avatars (e.g., wizards always wear robes and tall pointed hats), other users can
easily recognize and interpret another user’s abilities within a gaming world. However,
allowing the use of only predefined avatars limits self-expression. In contrast, users are
provided with the maximum level of self-expression at the fully customized end of the
spectrum. However, exercising this self-expression requires more effort in avatar
creation (e.g., creating user clothing or skin in Second Life requires advanced Photoshop
skills) and prevents other users from accurately “reading” other avatars. For example, it
is impossible to determine whether users are experienced users who makes their own
clothing and skin or inexperienced users who simply purchased well-made objects
simply by looking at their avatars in Second Life.
Quadrant I includes worlds in which users can create content as well as
customize their avatars. In the case of Second Life, the same tools that allow users to
create objects also allow them to customize their avatar, resulting in a whimsical world
filled with a wide variety of avatars and spaces, including castles, shopping malls, and
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underwater theme parks filled with users dressed as flamboyant humans, giant dragons,
and furry animals, such as the avatar in fig. 3-3.
Fig. 0-3. Avatar in Second Life.
Spaces in Quadrant IV allow users to create or manipulate the environment’s
content but not their avatars. Worlds such as Qwak provide tools with which to display
web pages and other content on the walls in the space but limit users to simple robotic
avatars, such as that shown in fig. 3-3. This leads the focus of Qwak to be activities
within the space and on the space itself rather than on user-to-user social interaction.
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Fig. 0-4. Avatar in Qwak (Welles).
Quadrant IV contains worlds with environments that are largely predefined, such
as Cyworld, in which users largely exist within predefined spaces and in which user-touser chat is the primary activity. In worlds that do not allow for conditional identity
customization, users’ avatars contribute far less meaning to the space. Conditional
identity becomes incredibly important in worlds with competitive environments or
competitive user-to-user relationships, as is discussed later in this chapter.
The gap in Quadrant II illustrates that none of the worlds studied allow users to
customize their avatar but not to create content in the environment. As with Second
Life, the tools used to fully customize one’s avatar are often the same tools needed to
create other kinds of in-world content. It appears that VW developers do not see value
in allowing users to craft user-generated content (UGC) for their avatars if that same
content creation cannot be applied to the world itself. Imagine a world such as
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Warhammer Online where there is no stigmergy but with custom avatars added. Rather
than watching armies of soldiers and wizards, whose appearance suits the storyline and
setting of the world, we might see skateboarding raccoons sliding into battle. If users
were allowed to customize their avatar but not change the world to suit it, there would,
no doubt, be extensive clashes between the tone of users’ avatars and the carefully
crafted environment of the game. Although such a world might allow users to flex their
creativity and dress themselves in ways that the world designers never dreamed of, the
continuity of the static environment would likely clash with the users’ creations. These
clashes would decrease the immersive qualities of the world, which might reduce users’
feeling of involvement in the story arch or distract them from game play.
Level of Object Ownership vs. Nature of User-to-User Relationship
The relationships that users can form in VWs range from collaborative
relationships, in which they are unable to attack one another, to conditional
relationships, in which they may attack or fight one another in certain circumstances, to
competitive relationships, in which they may attack one another at any time and in any
space. Most gaming worlds allow for the formation of conditional user-to-user
relationships in which players from different factions may choose to enter player-vs.player (PVP) areas and duel one another or engage in large battles. Other VWs, such as
IMVU and Second Life, promote the formation of collaborative relationships because the
activity in these worlds is much less focused on competition and much more focused on
socializing. The results of the bivariate analysis shown in fig. 3.5 indicate a possible
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connection between level of object ownership and level of competition in user-to-user
relationships.
Fig. 0-5. Classification of VWs into quadrants by level of object ownership and nature of
user-to-user relationship.
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Quadrant II includes worlds such as ExitReality in which users who meet to view
a document on a wall in a virtual room all have the ability to interact with the document
(see fig. 3-6). As such, their activities are potentially collaborative rather than
combative.
Fig. 0-6. Users in ExitReality viewing a webpage displayed on a wall in a virtual lobby
(Riley).
Along the lower half of the Y-axis (nature of user-to-user relationship) and in
Quadrant III reside worlds in which objects are privately owned or shared only in limited
ways and yet the interaction among users is not combative. Hello Kitty Online, in which
users can ask their friends to assist them in building a home or growing a garden, and
Second Life, in which users work cooperatively to complete tasks, are included in this
group of worlds. The competitive user relationships formed among users in the worlds
within Quadrants I and II influence the nature of object ownership. A world in which
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users may compete against one another for prized objects or resources cannot
encourage full object sharing, which may either provide users within the same faction
with an advantage against other players or devalue objects by making them freely
available.
Nature of User-to-User Relationship vs. Nature of User-to-Environment Relationship
As previously described, VWs may pit users against one another within a
competitive environment or encourage social activities via collaborative relationships.
VW environments have similar relationships to users. In collaborative environments,
users need not be concerned about roaming mobs of monsters or enemy soldiers,
whereas the elements of game play are the focus of competitive environments in which
users are pitted against non-player characters (NPCs).
Quadrant III in fig. 3-7 contains a wide variety of social worlds, including Second
Life, IMVU, and Exit Reality, whereas Quadrant II contains VWs in which users are
encouraged to collaborate with one another to create strategies to defeat the enemies
produced by the virtual environment. Along the Y-axis reside worlds in which
relationships between users are conditional, such as World of Warcraft, which contains
allied cities in which users are guaranteed safe passage as well as war zones in which
players may freely attack one another.
The gap in Quadrant I illustrates that none of the worlds studied can be
characterized as entirely competitive in terms of other users and the environment such
that its users would have no safe harbor and every entity, whether an NPC or fellow
user, would attempt to attack them. The absence of such worlds may be due to the fact
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that such a combination of facets would leave no room for teamwork or camaraderie,
and would be a very lonely and exhausting space. Quadrant IV contains worlds in which
users fight only one another. Such worlds must be either geographically small so that
users can find one another or extremely well populated; otherwise, users would spend
Fig. 3-7. Classification of VWs into quadrants by nature of user-to-user relationship and
nature of user-to-environment relationship.
the majority of their time tracking one another to engage in battle.. The character class
of the bounty hunter in Star Wars Galaxies approaches being characterized as a purely
competitive game that allows users to track one another. As shown in fig. 3.8, the
bounty hunter’s sole goal is to hunt down Jedis (other players who have achieved this
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status through game play) using droids and robots that scour the galaxy and deliver
information back to the player about the location of his or her prey. Although playing a
bounty hunter is enjoyable, the success of a Jedi player’s mercenary mission often
involves hours of searching to find one’s target.
Fig. 0-8. A bounty hunter accompanied by a droideka robot used to locate assassination
targets in Star Wars Galaxies(Intellagirl).
The constraints of a competitive user-to-user world can be further illustrated by
examining Ultima Online. When the world first came into existence, all users could fight
one another in any region of the environment, as well as kill one another, loot each
other’s bodies, and steal items and equipment. Within a short time, looting became so
rampant that users began to complain about the chaos and lack of safe havens, and in
reaction the developers changed the world’s gaming mechanics (Koivisto 9).
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Nature of User-to-User Relationship vs. Number of Groups That Can Be Joined
Simultaneously
Joining groups is an integral part of the social structure of a VW, as it allows
users in competitive worlds to establish a system of allies. Groups in VWs take forms
such as guilds, interest groups, and patron groups for a service producer. In
collaborative worlds, such as Second Life and Qwak, users join groups to find users with
common interests. For example, both of these worlds contain groups created by
members of a specific campus or business, as well as groups created by fans of a
particular musical group or artist. In gaming worlds with conditional or competitive userto-user or user-to-environment relationships, these groups often take the form of
guilds. For example, in City of Heroes, players form “supergroups” that may own a base
used as a clubhouse. For the purpose of this study, the term group refers to an entity
characterized by the lasting and permanent membership of its members unless they are
ejected by the leader of the group or leave the group voluntarily. As such, it does not
encompass short-term groups users join for a specific purpose, such as collaborating to
fight a specific battle.
Quadrant II includes Second Life and other social VWs in which users join
multiple groups to express their interests. Second Life currently allows users to join up
to 25 groups at a time. These groups have important management functions in the VW.
Group owners can use the permissions associated with membership to give users
abilities such as land management, access to exclusive content, and management over
other members of the group (see fig. 3-10). Owners can also use group mechanics to
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send information to all members at once in the form of notices. Group memberships in
Second Life are displayed in a user’s profile, which may be viewed by anyone, and can be
displayed above an avatar’s head along with his or her name. Thus, groups in Second Life
are a form of self-expression within public forums.
In Quadrant III, worlds such as MTV’s Virtual Lower East Side have groups that do
have these combinations of world mechanics. Users may express interest in a band, for
Fig. 0-9. Classification of VWs into quadrants by nature of user-to-user relationship and
number of groups that can be joined simultaneously.
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Fig. 0-10. The group management menu in Second Life allows group leaders to assign
roles and abilities to group members.
example, by including that information on their profile, but there are no official groups
to join. The axes in fig. 3-9 demonstrate that most worlds with conditional user-to-user
relationships allow users to join only one group. In worlds in which survival relies on
having a stable group of allies, groups are important. In World of Warcraft, for example,
guild members may share resources, assist one another in completing quests, and work
together to accomplish larger goals such as performing raids. In fact, guilds are so
important in World of Warcraft that over 66% of players belong to one ("Body and
Mind" 411).
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World of Warcraft is split into two factions, Horde and Alliance, and all users
belong to one side or another based on the type of character they choose when first
logging in. Members of the factions in World of Warcraft speak different languages.
Thus, if a Horde member encounters an Alliance member and attempts to text-chat, the
program converts the user’s typed messages into incoherent babble before displaying
them. In competitive worlds, groups are often necessary to advance within the game.
For example, in World of Warcraft, some quests are difficult to complete alone, and
guild members may offer easy access to help.
Other worlds with conditional user-to-user and user-to-environment
relationships have complex ecologies of in-world professions, which encourage
individuals to form stable groups to work as co-ops. Star Wars Galaxies, with its many
player professions, is constructed to encourage relationships among users. Most classes
in the game rely on members of other classes for ingredients, battle assistance, and
healing. Building a guild with a wide variety of professions means that members always
have access to the support of other professions when they need it (Ducheneaut, Yee,
and Moore 360).
Quadrants I and IV of fig. 3-9 are empty for two reasons. First, there are no
worlds in this study that have constant user-to-user competition. As mentioned in the
previous section, a world without allies of any sort would be difficult to survive in.
Second, if users were in constant competition, they would not be able to, and would
have no motivation to, join groups as allies. There are very few VWs in which users in
conditional relationships may join more than one group. It is safe to assume that in
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worlds where users are trying to defeat each other, allies are important. However, such
alliances cannot be fickle if they are to be trusted. Thus, most conditional user-to-user
worlds allow players to join and establish their allegiance to only one group. Moreover,
these groups are usually closed and only allow members to join by invitation.
Fig. 0-11. The Lanakila guild from World of Warcraft pose for a portrait (Lanakila).
The social benefits of groups in competitive worlds are often misrepresented in
VWs research. Christoper Peters and Alvin Malesky and Joshua Smyth represented
increased social ties in VWs as being “maladaptive” or “problematic.” Neither of the
researchers’ articles explored the important role of guilds in VWs and how users rely on
one another not just for survival, but also for extended social interaction and peer
support. Because the research did not explore user-to-environment and user-to-user
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relationship facets, the findings from their surveys cannot be compared to those of
similar surveys of users in collaborative environments such as Second Life. The findings
would be incommensurate because there was no consideration for the complexity of
the causal relationship between group numbers and user-to-user relationships.
Users of Second Life, for example, who spend more time with their in-world
friends than with their analog friends might have different motivations for doing so than
users of World of Warcraft. On the other hand, comparing survey findings regarding
social relationships in World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online (two worlds with
single-group membership and competitive relationships) could be enlightening if it were
found that one had less impact on analog social relationships than the other. In other
words, the findings of these surveys would be commensurate because the facets of the
two worlds are similar.
User-to-Environment Relationship vs. Group Number
As with user-to-user relationships, groups are important to competitive user-toenvironment relationships. Competitive environments are worlds in which roving mobs
of monsters, enemy soldiers, or other antagonistic NPCs are out to defeat users. In most
game worlds, the user-to-environment relationship is conditional, meaning there are
NPCs who are competitive and others, such as townspeople and skills trainers, who are
collaborative.
In fig. 3-12, Quadrants II and III include social worlds where users may join
multiple groups or where groups are not present. Quadrant IV includes game worlds in
which users are left to fend for themselves against a competitive environment without
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stable groups, though casual alliances may be formed for short-term help. Quadrant I
demonstrates the lack of competitive worlds in which users may join multiple groups. As
stated in earlier, alliances become critical in competitive environments; thus, groups
Fig. 3-12. Classification of VWs into quadrants by nature of user-to-environment
relationship and number of groups that can be joined simultaneously.
require dedication to establish trust relationships. The ability to join more than one
group would undermine trust and call a user’s dedication to the group into question.
Multiple alliances would allow for double agents and political intrigue; however, to date,
such a VW does not exist.
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User-to-User Relationship vs. Identity Formation
Identity formation is a critical component of most VWs. The user’s ability to
create an avatar as a form of self-expression is central to almost all VWs. VWs with static
identity do not offer users tools to change their avatar after creating it. Thus, most game
worlds use conditional identity formation. Armor and other avatar customizations are
earned through the game’s mechanics or purchased from vendors in the game world.
Because these customizations are standardized within the game world, they become
cues to other players of a user’s status and achievements. fig. 3.13 and fig. 3.14 show
the same character in Warhammer Online and illustrate the way conditional avatar
customization conveys a user’s achievements. Players can surmise that the avatar in fig.
3.14 is of a higher level than the one in fig. 3.13 simply by examining its customization.
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Fig. 3-13. A starting character in Warhammer Online.
Fig. 3-14. The same Warhammer Online character shown in fig. 3-13, 20 levels later.
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Although researchers have found that players of World of Warcraft and other
MMORPGs often create their avatars to be their ideal selves, these findings must be
filtered through the levels of customization allowed in the game world. Katherine
Bessiere et al. found that in a survey of World of Warcraft players, that the “player’s
characters express aspects of the players’ ideal selves with implications for their wellbeing” (530). The researchers did not, however, discuss the limitations of the charactercreation system or the conditional identity formation in World of Warcraft and how the
limitations of the system influence the ways users feel about their avatars. Instead,
Bessiere et al. links self-assessment and self-esteem to avatar identification by
hypothesizing that players who are unhappy with themselves will are more likely to
create a character that is their “idealized self” (531). Thus, without an understanding of
conditional identity, the article’s findings are somewhat flawed, or at least leave out a
critical variable that may influence the findings.
Other researchers have hypothesized that limited avatar creation allows world
developers to enforce their own stereotypes and biases, such as racism and sexism,
through the choices given to users in avatar creation (Pace). For example, the highest
level armor available to female avatars in most conditional identity systems is also the
most revealing, as seen in fig. 3-13 and fig. 3-14. In order to choose modest avatar
clothing, players may have to sacrifice effective avatar abilities. Moreover, in many
conditional identity systems, alternative clothing is not even an option because clothing
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items are specific to characters’ race and class. Thus, modest clothing can only be worn
by a certain kind of avatar.
Worlds with custom identity formation allow users to make changes to their
avatars at any time, typically using UGC. Avatars in Second Life, for example, can
become anything they would like to be. More complex customization requires either
greater content creation skills (e.g., Photoshop skills to make clothing that is more
detailed) or more currency to purchase content created by other users. Fig. 3.15
displays the same Second Life avatar with a range of investments in customization.
Because currency may be purchased by anyone, and with enough currency, anyone can
buy the most complex and high-quality customizations, users of Second Life cannot
necessarily determine the level of experience others have in the VW. However, users
can decipher others’ avatars for expressions of personality because there are no
limitations on avatar appearance. Thus, every avatar in a customized identity world,
such as Second Life, is a text of choices and investments that others can interpret.
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Fig. 0-15. Customizations of a Second Life avatar’s customizations. The cost of each
avatar is approximately (left to right) US$.50, $2.00, and $7.50 and implies the level of
skill necessary to create it.
Fig. 0-16. Classification of VWs into quadrants by nature of user-to-user relationship and
method of identity formation.
Competitive worlds necessitate conditional identities because an avatar’s
attributes are tied to its abilities and experience. A world that falls into Quadrant IV
would be filled with avatars with no outward cues as to their abilities. Even close
inspection of another user’s avatar would not indicate whether he or she possesses the
abilities of an equal foe. Likewise, a world in Quadrant I, in which users are competitive
but avatars are customized, would not include the avatar cues necessary to gauge
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another player’s ability or level. Thus, in competitive relationships, avatars are
important rhetorical devices in VWs.
User-to-User Relationship vs. Stigmergy
As with custom identities in competitive VWs, none of the worlds included in this
study allowed for stigmergic content if the relationships between users was
competitive. Game worlds are carefully crafted to maintain balance between players
and fairness in ability acquisition. These worlds often contain highly polished storylines
and environments. Thus, allowing users to change the environment could damage the
experience for others. Some game worlds, however, allow limited stigmergy. Lord of the
Rings Online, for example, allows guilds to own homes in which users can drop items as
decorations. These decorations stay in place until guild members remove them.
However, this limited stigmergy applies only to objects created in the game; users
cannot upload their own content to be placed in their guild hall.
Quadrant II includes Second Life, which gives users almost unlimited permission
and tools to create content. Users with a space to build can create any kind of content
they’d like, from the Sistine Chapel to space stations. Fig. 3-18 shows one such creation:
the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
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Fig. 0-17. Classification of VWs into quadrants by nature of user-to-user relationships
and stigmergy.
Fig. 0-18. A recreation of the Eiffel Tower in Second Life.
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Quadrant III includes IMVU, a social world in which users inhabit precreated
spaces such as coffee houses and beaches. Worlds in Quadrant III contain no usercreated content. In chapter four, these facets will be applied to the rhetoric generated
by users to illustrate how the presence of specific facets results in unique
communication patterns.
Chapter 4 Using Activity Theory and Genre Ecology Models to Connect
Facets with Motivations in Virtual World Education
In this chapter, I use the VW facets discussed in chapter three to analyze the
worlds’ mechanics and apply activity theory (AT) and genre ecology models (GEMs). An
examination of the tutorials of a game VW and a social VW are used to illustrate the
designer-intended activities in these worlds. I use GEMs to examine the interaction
between world mechanics and modes of communication, first in tutorials and then in
educational applications in VWs. Finally, I combine the activities, genres, and facets of
those worlds into a process for selecting a VW to apply in an educational setting.
VWs are microcosms of evolving culture mediated by their own mechanics.
Activities within the world are made possible by developer-provided mechanics, which
are the foundation for the user’s virtual abilities. These activities evolve as users overlay
their own needs and motivations onto the space. However, abilities are always
constrained by the basic designer-provided mechanics of the world. Users in a VW are
limited by the senses and expressive tools given to them by the system, much as realworld individuals are in some ways limited by their physicality.
Studies of VWs have focused on the result of the evolution of culture (guild
organizations, game play, etc.) rather than on the basic user abilities that facilitate the
development of more complex structures, as if studying a civilization before
understanding the anatomy of the beings who built it. Therefore, in this chapter, I
illustrate how the VW facets discussed in chapter three add valuable insight to a study
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of VWs. Using AT (Engeström), I begin by analyzing the methods used in VW tutorials to
shape and suggest user activities and then demonstrate how concepts from chapter
three add to the analysis.
Activity Theory: An Introduction
Proposed by socio-cultural psychologists, AT is a theory of cognition. “AT
constitutes a novel approach to the study of cognition, one that both foregrounds the
culturally embedded nature of our ongoing practical activity and posits that we think
and how we think is ultimately a product of what we do” (Koschmann 17). It is a
framework to describe the cyclical and reciprocal interactions among subjects
(actors/individuals), the objects of the interaction (the purpose or objective of the
activity), and the tools used to facilitate the activity (software, concept, etc.)
(Koschmann 17). AT suggests that subjects do not merely interact with the world
according to a simple cause–effect relationship; rather, the relationships within an
activity constitute a complex, layered, continuous process of learning and situational or
cultural influences. In its simplest form, AT focuses on the relationship among a single
subject, object, and tool and the context in which an activity occurs (Kaptelinin and
Nardi 66).
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Fig. 0-1. Diagram of the relationships in Activity Theory.
AT stresses that tools alter our activities, which in turn, alter our tools (Nardi
Context and Consciousness10). For example, I need to write an e-mail, and I have an
Internet-connected computer, an e-mail client, and my native language (the tools),
which allow me to convey the message I need to send (the object). As I use the tools
successfully or unsuccessfully, I gather feedback and alter my actions to improve my use
of the tools and to get closer to completing my object. If I try to send the message
without first typing in the recipient’s e-mail address, the software will alert me that I am
missing a critical part of the message. After entering the address, I can successfully send
the e-mail.
AT also suggests that individuals take into account the context of the activity,
such as the cultural or environmental factors that influence the relationships in the
activity. Writing an e-mail using my iPhone’s small keyboard or an unfamiliar e-mail
client would introduce new factors into the performance of the activity. Given the
situation and my need to send the message, my ability to use the device and the client
improves through effort and trial and error. The activity itself results in learning.
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“Activity Theory posits that conscious learning emerges from activity (performance) not
as a precursor to it” (Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy 62).
A critical element of AT is the view that the tool itself is part of a larger cultural
system. The tool limits the object by mediating what is possible. Tools may be physical
objects (such as a hammer or lever) or mental devices (such as language or philosophy).
They are the product of human activity and develop as they are used within a
community or culture. Tools are shaped as they accumulate the social context in which
they are used (Joyes and Chen). Engeström argued that the study of tools or artifacts is
necessary due to the inability to separate them from the understanding of human
activities. In this sense, the ability to deconstruct the mechanics (i.e., tools) of a VW is an
integral part of understanding how users inhabit the space, the activities they take part
in, and the motivations and incentives that drive them. Thus, it is impossible to analyze
the activities within a VW without first understanding the tools used in the world.
Moving beyond the activity of an individual to a larger scope causes the AT diagram to
become much more complex (see fig. 4-2).
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Fig. 0-2. Activity Theory triangle with added context.
Focusing on only the subject, tool, and object is suitable for examining the
activity of an individual. However, individuals live in communities, and their activities
are always intertwined with the activities, expectations, and influences of others. In
1987, Engeström introduced a more complex model to explain cooperative work and
collective activities and to take into account the ways that community and social
structures mediate individuals’ activities ("Learning by Expanding"). In this
contextualized model, activity occurs in within a community, or collaborative network.
The network is a connected set of nodes, which constitute users with communicative
abilities granted by the software, and acts as a mediating factor, along with the rules of
the community and the division of labor offered by multiple actors. These relationships
offer additional context to any activity.
Communities are based on rules, implicit and explicit, and accepted behaviors
that influence how a member is expected to behave and perform. These rules indicate
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the expected methods of achieving a specific outcome and may include everything from
gender roles to policies and laws. Within a community, the activity may be split among
several subjects (division of labor) who contribute to the outcome. This division suggests
a subject’s role in that community and may imply power relationships or hierarchy
(Kuuti, Uden, and Valderas). However, once a new tool is introduced into the
community, a contradiction arises if that community does not have rules for the use of it
(Frederickson 648). Finally, even on a community scale, there is cyclical and continuous
change in the system. The subjects in the community use the tools, follow the rules, and
play their role in the division of labor, all while changing and being changed by the
system through their activities (Mwanza 55). This process of reciprocal transformation is
referred to as internalization (Kuutti “Activity Theory as Potential Framework for
Human-Computer Interaction Research.” 31).
According to the framework of AT, the tasks we undertake to accomplish our
objectives also exist in a cyclical system of growth and change. We construct our
activities to achieve our goals, but those constructions are combinations of actions and
operations. Operations are simple acts that we perform unconsciously or autonomically,
such as holding a pencil or taking a step. If we combine those operations into more
complex acts such as writing an essay or dancing, we create actions. Perform an action
often enough, and it becomes operationalized (Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy).
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Fig. 0-3. Activity, action, and operation are related from Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy.
AT posits that we only learn about a process by performing it (Jonassen and
Rohrer-Murphy 62). This cyclical process of moving from action to operation in pursuit
of accomplishing a goal results in learning. Our orientation is the mental plan created to
accomplish an action. Orientation recedes as actions become habituated and
operationalized. Should an operation fail to produce the expected results, individuals
encounter a contradiction, and the operation again unfolds into action. Development
occurs within these contradictions (Kuutti “Activity Theory as Potential Framework for
Human-Computer Interaction Research.” 34).
Though critics of AT claim that the process makes a learner seem less like a
creative problem solver and more like a robot that simply improves its ability to perform
a task, Vygotsky and other learning theorists leveraged AT to describe how learning
could be an elegant evolving process that is quite contrary to the process-oriented
approach that thinkers such as Illich railed against (Lektorsky 66). In the realms of
computer-mediated communication (CMC) and human–computer interaction (HCI), AT
has been used as a way to understand the approaches and responses of technology
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users. Attempts to answer questions regarding how users adapt to changes in software
and hardware, and how we learn to use a new technology, have been approached using
AT. However, to date, no one has used AT to specifically examine how new VW users
learn to navigate and communicate within those worlds.
Sinem Siyahhan, Sasha Barab, and David Downton used AT to study parents and
children completing game tasks in a VW, focusing on the triad of parent, child, and
object and not the tool (7). The lack of attention to tools in previous studies, such as this
one, may be partly because VWs are new to education, where most AT research takes
place. Also, the majority of VW literature centers on game play in antagonistic VWs
rather than on how users learn to use the world itself. AT can only be useful as a
framework for understanding VWs if there is a well-developed idea of how the worlds
function as tools and instigators of activities. The VW facets developed in chapter three
provide both a way to factor in tools and a way to understand those tools.
Research Methods and Activity Theory
AT offers conceptual frameworks for exploring methods of activity and the
relationships between them. Therefore, it does not lend itself to a single method of
research and does not offer “ready-made techniques and procedures” for research.
Rather, it provides a structure that must be “concretized according to the specific nature
of the object under scrutiny” (Engeström 97). Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi
suggested that research utilizing AT must follow a structure that is more of a “formative
experiment which combines active participation with monitoring of the developmental
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changes of the study participants. Ethnographic methods that track the history and
development of a practice have also become important in recent work.”
Regardless of the method used to collect data, using AT to form a research
question requires the establishment of what constitutes the integral parts of the activity
relationship. Without establishing the identity of the subject, the nature of the object,
and the possible functions of the tool, informed questions cannot be asked because the
character of these components forms a foundation for inquiry. Identifying the functional
facets of VWs provides insight into not only their function as tools, but also the
motivations of individual subjects, their objects, and the community context of the
evolving activities.
Expectations in a Virtual World
In this analysis, I focus on the initial user experience in a VW. As with any
software, early user experience is critical in shaping the decision to continue using the
software, as well as attitudes toward the software as a tool (as in Gartner’s Hype Cycle
by Jackie Fenn). An initial experience that meets or exceeds the user’s expectations
encourages him or her to continue using the software. An experience that results in
frustration or disappointment may result in the user’s abandoning the software. Thus,
the user’s initial experience contributes to the overall success of the software and, in
this case, VW. The more satisfying the initial experience, the more likely one is to
continue logging in.
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Although users have preconceived motivations for entering a VW (e.g., the
world’s marketing materials, the suggestions of friends and colleagues, etc.), the world
itself must provide a satisfying activity for the user if that user is to have a fulfilling
experience. In terms of AT, the world not only is the tool with which the subject
interacts, but also provides the object that initially engages the user. Most worlds do
this through a tutorial, or set of basic activities designed to introduce the user to the
interface and tools and engage them in common objects/objectives. These
objects/objectives and the means to achieve them not only give the user a satisfying
experience, but also provide a path to engage in further activities as intended by the
world’s creators and enabled by the world’s tools.
I test this hypothesis by analyzing the tutorials of two worlds, Second Life and
World of Warcraft, by using AT and exploring the benefits of the components factored
into the analysis. I chose to analyze Second Life and World of Warcraft because they
have very different user bases. World of Warcraft’s stable user base is over 11 million
with extremely high user retention, whereas Second Life only recently exceeded 1
million, with only 40% of accounts classified as regular users (Ducheneaut). An analysis
of the initial user experience in each world using an AT framework with the facets may
reveals why World of Warcraft has been so successful.
Subjects, Tools, and Objects in Virtual Worlds
Although AT allows for an expanded research focus including context,
community, and collaborative divisions of labor, the smallest unit of study under AT is a
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single subject, tool, and object. In a VW, the line that connects these three factors is
fluid—unlike the example given earlier in the chapter about writing an e-mail. In the
example, the line that connects the person writing the message, the tools used to create
the e-mail, and the completed message as an objective is relatively static. Activity is fluid
in VWs in part because VWs are a product of rhetorical activity. As Brummet proposed,
when viewed ontologically, “Rhetoric creates all of what there is to know” in a world
where “discourse creates realities rather than truths about realities” (4). Without the
communicative acts of users, VWs would be ghost towns of code waiting to be
inhabited. The activities of the user are what bring a VW to life, bring meaning to the
constructs created by designers, and uncover the truths about the reality within the
world. Without user activities, a VW is just a potential reality.
Subject
The user is the subject. However, in the case of VWs, the user’s identity often is
more complex than it is in the physical world. As discussed in chapter three, identity in a
VW can be simple and static or complex and customizable. Users inhabit the identity of
the avatar they control in addition to the multiple identities they embody in daily life.
The user’s level of connection with an avatar may change over time as they use it and
come to identify with it. However, in an early VW experience, such as during a tutorial,
the user may see the avatar as merely a tool with which to interface with the world.
Thus, I consider the user at the keyboard to be the subject rather than the user plus
avatar.
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A study of users must take into account technical literacy (i.e., ability to use a
computer) and prior experience with VWs. Both factors influence users’ experience of
the tools and their objectives in the world. In an effort to analyze initial user experience
in an abstract and general way, elements of subject are not taken into consideration.
For the purposes of this analysis, I assume that the user is technologically literate
enough to have installed the software and to not feel intimidated by entering a VW for
the first time.
Tools
The VWs are tools, but their complexity requires that they be broken down for
analysis. Considering a VW interface as a single tool would oversimplify the analysis and
only provide insights regarding the initial appeal of one world over another. Moreover,
the results would be insightful only in terms of the VW’s marketing methods and could
not contribute to an analysis of user retention. Because the goal of this analysis is to
illustrate the benefit of using facets of VWs within an AT framework, and not to create a
complete analysis of all available tools in the two worlds compared, I focus only on the
tools featured in the tutorial, specifically the end of the tutorial, in which the user is
advised on what his or her next object (the first self-selected objective) should be.
Object
The object is the key element of this analysis. Accomplishing the object is the key
motivation within the activity. Tutorials provide the user with a structured set of
objects, such as learning to move, travel, communicate, and make use of other key
elements of the interface. Although the user may bring his or her overriding object into
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the world (e.g., playing a game with friends, establishing a virtual business, etc.), the
tutorial provides the VW designers with an opportunity to suggest objectives for the
user, which may help to engage users in a satisfying experience within the world. I
hypothesize that worlds that provide a clear path of objects for the user have a higher
retention rate. In this analysis, I use AT to demonstrate that World of Warcraft fills this
need, whereas Second Life does not.
AT stresses that the whole of the relationship among subject, tool, and object
should be the focus of analysis. However, in this case, the subject seems to recede into
the background. All new users in a VW are treated the same by the software. Thus, the
VW is not concerned with an individual user’s motivation for logging in. Rather, the
system of the VW treats all users equally and assumes that the designers’ intended
objectives are the objectives of the user. Much like Janet Emig’s concept of a positivist
governing gaze, the software does not consider the user’s context, motivations, and
prior experience (163). Because of this, the tool and object come to the forefront in the
analysis—so much so that the line between them becomes somewhat blurred in the
discussion of VW tutorials, which are an introduction to the tools and intended objects
within the world.
Tools and objects are tied closely to the rules of the space. These rules are not
merely behavioral suggestions, but also limitations and abilities programmed into the
world, which users do not have the choice to accept or reject. Nardi claimed that
individuals see the limitations set by rules as “resources preserving good design” (My
Life as a Night Elf Priest 74). I argue that, in the early space of the tutorial, rules are the
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guiding posts that ensure a user has the experience intended by the designers. Rather
than preserving the design for the new user, rules preserve the experience.
It should be noted though, that the distinctions among rules, tools, and objects
in a VW is weak. The tools are the source of the rules (i.e., Second Life has a rule that
allows users to fly, whereas in World of Warcraft, flight is only allowed using a mount
and only for users at high levels). The result of limiting flight to high-level characters in
World of Warcraft preserves the hierarchy of players and provides motivation to lowlevel users to continue playing. Objects arise at the crossroads between rules and tools,
such as the goal to reach the level at which World of Warcraft users may purchase a
flying mount. “Rules direct and motivate the activity of the actors, not the other way
around” (Nardi My Life as a Night Elf Priest 70). Jannis Kallinikos explained that when
examining software of any kind, researchers must emphasize tools and rules; focusing
on the subject may give a skewed view of the activity (251). “There is something to learn
about hammering not from ‘contextual encounters’ involving watching individuals
hammer but from addressing the hammer itself” (Nardi My Life as a Night Elf Priest 69).
The rules in a VW enable or inhibit activities and are created by the tools and intended
objects.
Activity Theory and the World of Warcraft Tutorial
New users of World of Warcraft begin at a starting location based on the race of
the avatar they have created. After a dramatic, cinematic opening with sweeping
camera angles and flyovers of mythical landscapes, which introduces the backstory of
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the avatar’s race, the camera sweeps down to focus on the avatar. The avatar stands in
front of an non-player character (NPC) with a question mark over his or her head. A popup on screen tells the user to right click on the NPC to interact with it. Although the
player is not confined to following the tutorial step by step and may close it at any time,
following the suggestions of the tutorial guides a player through the basic features of
the interface (e.g., movement, interacting with NPCs, opening one’s inventory, using
objects, and finding locations on the map). The tutorial is performed in the context of
completing a few initial quests that conform to the common types of quests in the
world: finding a specific NPC to interact with, collecting items for an NPC, killing a
specific number of monsters, and buying and selling items from a merchant.
Along the way, the avatar levels up (a measure of achievement and method of
gaining new abilities in World of Warcraft), and the user receives encouraging messages,
prompting him or her to find a trainer to gain new spells, attacks, and beneficial items.
The tutorial ends when the user has finished all of the tutorial quests and is ready to
venture into the rest of the game. It is important to note, however, that the starting
areas in World of Warcraft are part of the rest of the game’s world and are not
separate. Even while completing the tutorial, players can see the avatars of other
players doing the same and may interact or team up with them. Thus, even in the first
few minutes within the world, users have access to the complete interface and all tools.
The last message of the new-player tutorial prompts the player to keep going and to
enjoy exploring the world, as well as provides a clue as to where more quests await.
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World of Warcraft’s tutorial is not unique. Most game worlds provide such a
tutorial to teach new users how to use the world’s game mechanics (e.g., fighting,
leveling, etc.) and to introduce them to other useful mechanics (e.g., communication,
travel, item management, etc.). Game designers know that users need to be able to play
to feel an immediate level of comfort and mastery of the system if users are to continue
playing. In terms of AT, a world with competitive user relationships or competitive
environment relationships has an imbedded set of immediate objects to engage in (e.g.,
to stay alive, to play the game, etc.), but these objects are foreign to a new player and
must be provided by the designers. Tutorials such as World of Warcraft’s provide
objects to the subject right away and introduce the necessary tools to complete the
activity. Rather than asking the subject to provide his or her own object, the world
provides it and models the kind of objects the subject could strive to complete in the
future.
Other facets are also introduced in the tutorial. Because users can own objects,
inventory management is described as an important feature. Conditional identity within
World of Warcraft is constructed from an avatar’s level, as well as from the gear that he
or she wears and uses. Thus, the tutorial includes ways to increase one’s ability and the
inventory objects associated with those abilities (e.g., armor, spell ingredients, quest
rewards, etc.).
Without an understanding of the facets of World of Warcraft, one would be
quite puzzled by the tutorial. For example, interacting with the world for the first time
without an understanding of the avatar’s relationship to other users and to the
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environment would make fighting seem strange, and the user could easily misinterpret
aggressive actions as maliciousness toward the NPCs rather than as goal-driven
behavior. Because object ownership is not shared in World of Warcraft, (i.e., two users
cannot possess the same item in both of their inventories), picking up objects from dead
NPCs, known as looting, is an important activity. At lower levels of the game, the rules
prohibit users from looting another player’s kill. However, later in the game, during raids
and other team-based activities, there is no such limitation; thus, the inability to share
an object becomes a reason for establishing rules within a group about who gets a
powerful item dropped from a defeated monster. Without an understanding of the
object ownership facet of World of Warcraft, analysis of the group’s decision-making
activities would be impossible.
A comparison of this tutorial to one which does not offer up such objectives reveals
interesting insights.
Activity Theory and the Second Life Tutorial
The motto of Second Life’s creator, Linden Lab, is “Your world. Your
imagination.” The motto suggests that the world does not provide objects for users;
users create their own motivations. When logging in to Second Life for the first time,
users are presented with a space with several billboards describing the tools of the
interface, including how to walk, fly, and chat. There are also lessons available to
introduce inventory management and dressing the avatar.
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As a tool, the tutorial is passive. Rather than being part of the interface itself, as
in World of Warcraft, the tutorial resides in items in the environment, which the user
must navigate in order to read. Screen shots of the interface tools are used on the
billboards to provide guidance. The tutorial does not suggest any rules, does not
mention acceptable community behavior, and does not provide suggestions for
improving one’s in-world experience. The only hints at motivations or objects are
presented on the last billboard (see fig. 4-4), which gives the user four options of places
to go to after the tutorial.
Fig. 4-4. Final billboard in the Second Life tutorial space.
The first option, “Update your look,” is related to customized identity
construction within Second Life and offers users an opportunity to teleport to shopping
locations where items such as clothing and hairdos may be purchased. The second
option, “Thousands of cool places,” suggests an exploration object and teleports the
user to one of several popular locations on the Second Life map, without providing a
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motivation for activity after arriving. The locations are all user-created due to the
stigmergic nature of the Second Life environment. The third option, “Meet new friends
now,” teleports the user to a greeting area where new users congregate, though the
space offers no shared activities that encourage users to communicate with one
another. The second and third options are indicative of the collaborative relationship
facets of Second Life (relationship to other users and relationship to the environment).
Rather than being invited to teleport to fight monsters or to challenge other players,
users are invited to make friends and to explore. The final option is to chat with a
Second Life user who has volunteered to be a greeter for new users.
Over the years, Linden Lab has experimented with several orientation formats.
From videos to robot greeters, all of the tutorial formats have focused on introducing
basic tools and inviting users to “live a second life,” with very little direction as to what
that life should be like. Early complaints about Second Life came from players of World
of Warcraft and other MMOPRGs, who were expecting to play a game. They expected to
engage in conditional relationships with the environment and/or other users but instead
found a collaborative environment and left disappointed and confused. Reviews of
Second Life by users who expected game mechanics typically included criticism of the
VW for not having built-in challenges or obstacles to overcome and the notion that the
tools should be familiar to gamers (Anderson). The lack of suggested objectives in the
Second Life tutorial may leave even nongamers wondering what they should do next.
Linden Lab does not share data about users who choose to cancel their accounts
or simply do not log in after entering the tutorial. However, comments left on online
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forums indicate that many users who leave within the first few minutes of logging in do
so because of technical difficulties with the client (e.g., lack of hardware support) and
confusion about the point of Second Life is (Online Gamers Anonymous). The latter
reason is directly related to the tutorial’s lack of user objects. Without the object, the
tool and subject cannot define an activity.
Genre Ecology Models: The Next Step in Activity Theory
AT analysis provides insights into the way that individuals, their tools, and their
objectives are connected. Through this lens, researchers can learn about the activities
that designers provide to new users. However, because tutorials are constructed with
prescriptive activities provided by designers, tutorials say little about the activities that
make up the remainder of the user experience. Critics of AT claim that, when applied to
digitally mediated activities, the theory drives researchers to conduct overly granular
analysis and that distilling activity down to simple operations implies a sort of
automaton mentality in the subjects (Kaptelinin 43). In an effort to see the larger
context of these activities, researchers developed another model, Genre Ecology Model
(GEM), to examine what happens after the objective is reached. By focusing on the
communicative results of activities, GEM explores how patterns of recurrent activities
form stable, repeating forms of communication. Creating genre ecologies adds a layer to
the tutorial analysis by going beyond intended activities to intended genres.
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Origins of GEM
In response to the growing complexity of workplace communication patterns
and technological mediation of activities, scholars who study rhetorical practices at
work formulate frameworks to explain the ways communication artifacts are tied to the
activities and thought processes that are archived and shared through documents. AT
describes the way an activity is completed, but it stops there. Yet, activities do not occur
in a vacuum. Where one stops, or is completed, another begins. The realm of human
actions exists as a web of interconnected motives (K. Burke Rhetoric of Motives, 99).
These motives and their resulting actions are shared and externalized through rhetorical
activities. Documents, speech, and nonverbal interactions are the shareable proof of the
activity. When these acts become socially and culturally recognizable and fill an
expected function, they become a genre (Yates and Orlikowski, 15).
There are two accepted ways to map these webs of activities: communication
event models (CEMs) and GEMs. Both models are largely the work of three scholars:
Clay Spinuzzi, William Hart-Davidson, and Mark Zachry. Genre ecology is an “analytical
framework for studying how individuals use multiple artifacts—such as documentation,
interfaces, and annotation—to mediate their work activities” (Spinuzzi "Modeling Genre
Ecologies" 200). In these frameworks, genres are defined as artifact types that
symbolize “relatively stable responses to recurrent situations” (Spinuzzi "Modeling
Genre Ecologies" 200).
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For example, to a university help desk that provides computer user support, a
trouble ticket is a type of genre that repeatedly serves an operator’s need to record the
user’s issue and technical specifications. A CEM of this system would display the trouble
ticket as an entry in a system, such as Bugzilla, created to track tickets. In the CEM
framework, the medium through which the genre is created is inseparable from the
intended purpose of the genre. Thus, these visualizations of genre networks describe
the designed system rather than the actual system (Hart-Davidson 73).
Fig. 0-5. Simplified communication event model of a help-desk communication process.
As opposed to CEMs, GEMs track the actual use of the genre, rather than the
designed use, by allowing for the possibility that users may use alternative tools or
methods to achieve the same outcome. For example, in the help-desk example,
operators who are familiar with a reported problem and know that a specific technician
is the best one to respond may directly call that technician rather than relying on the
system to assign the task. The operator may also take down additional details that do
not fit into the prescribed fields in the trouble-ticket system.
These alternative tools and methods arise from various motives and result in
GEMs that are more complex than a CEM of the same process. Spinuzzi, Hart-Davidson,
and Zachry theorized that one source of replacement genres is a worker’s previous
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experiences of other workflows. Workers may substitute a method of communication
that they are familiar with or find effective “particularly (but not simply) when they are
dissatisfied with how work is performed” (44). It would be overly simplistic to reduce
the differences between CEM and GEM to disgruntled users or to improvisational
Fig. 0-6. Genre ecology model of a help-desk communication process that incorporates
alternative tools to accomplish a purpose.
genres, however. Instead, GEMs record the evolution of a system as users adapt it and
are adapted by it.
Ecologies have three consistent characteristics. First, they are contingent. The
connections and nodes describe how an activity is accomplished. The network can
change if the provided genres do not effectively accomplish the task. Second, ecologies
are decentralized. Any one genre is insufficient to accomplish the task. The network is
necessary to depict the work; a single genre would not be enough. Lastly, ecologies
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gradually move toward stability even though they are contingent (Spinuzzi "Modeling
Genre Ecologies" 202). The post-it note an operator might use to provide information
that cannot be entered into a trouble-ticket system could eventually result in the
system’s being edited to include that data.
Unit of Analysis in Genre Ecology Models
To begin visualizing GEMs, the units of analysis that appear in the model should
be identified. Spinuzzi used “ecology” to describe “texts that when used together
accomplish more than any one of them could” ("Modeling Genre Ecologies" 200).
However, the definition of “text” is critical to understanding genre, one unit of analysis
in GEM. There are two units of analysis in GEM: (a) chains of coordinated
communication events understood as writing activities or projects, and (b) genres
understood as typified responses to recurrent social situations and recognizable as
regularities in the formal features of discourse (Miller 151, Spinuzzi et al. "Modeling
Knowledge Work"). Thus, “text” refers to a writing activity performed to accomplish a
regular communicative task. However, “writing” is not used as a literal term and could
be replaced with “composing,” in that a text is anything that results from an external
communicative action and may take the form of speech, filling out a form, clicking a
button, or a nonverbal physical cue.
Ecologies, therefore, are networks of genres used in coordination to address a
given task. Spinuzzi et al. clarified the functional definition of communication as “the
transactional, intersubjective exchange of information, thoughts, writing or speech
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among participants” ("Chains and Ecologies" 43). To be labeled as a genre,
communication must be recognizable by others as a commonly used form of meeting a
familiar purpose (Yates and Orlikowski 15). This is a critical distinction because a node in
the network that is not recognizable by the users in the network cannot serve its
intended purpose. The communication situation must be familiar to the users for the
genres to be recognized.
The genre nodes of a GEM are connected through mediating relationships. Each
node is affected by the one before and, in turn, changes the one after it. These
relationships may be sequential (i.e., nodes that occur in a specific order due to their
purpose), modifying (i.e., each node augments or changes the node before), or
categorizing (i.e., parent nodes with supporting child nodes which contribute to it;
Spinuzzi "Modeling Genre Ecologies" 201). In the help-desk example, the linear steps are
sequential. The trouble ticket is not created until a user experiences a problem and calls
to report it. The operator’s phone call to the technician is a modifying node because it
changes the way the trouble ticket is used to determine the technician who responds to
it.
A linear process such as the trouble-ticket system is simple to graph in a GEM.
However, systems that are more complex are more difficult to trace. Because of this, it
is imperative to have a stable process by which GEMs are created.
Genre Ecology Modeling Process
Spinuzzi offered a four-step process to creating a GEM:
1. Identify genres
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2. Identify relationships among genres as sequential, modifying, or categorizing
3. Develop the GEM
4. Detect discoordinations ("Developing Genre Ecology Models").
Before the first step is taken, the activity the ecology engages in must be identified. The
trouble-ticket system would make no sense without understanding the goal of the
process: to provide customer service to end users. Once the purpose of the ecology is
known, the genres within it may be analyzed. The “discoordinations” in the fourth step
reference “difficulties in interpreting artifacts and managing the actions that those
artifacts mediate” (Spinuzzi Tracing Genres Through Organizations 69). If a worker, for
example, misunderstands the purpose of an artifact or confuses it for another kind of
artifact, he or she will misuse the artifact and cause discoordination. The operator at the
service desk may call a specific technician to assign a ticket based on the technician’s
perceived ability to solve the problem. However, if the technician confuses the call as
replacing the help-desk queue, the normal system for assigning tickets, he or she may
stop consulting the queue for assignments and simply wait for phone calls. This
misunderstanding of the phone call’s place in the ecology is a discoordination that
would result in a conflict or inefficiency in the system.
Defining Work Within the Genre Ecology Model
GEMs provide a way to thoroughly analyze activities in VW tutorials. First, it is
important to explain how GEMs, developed to explain workplace communication, are
applicable to nonwork spaces. GEMs describe the way work is accomplished among
information workers. However, the concept of work is not critical to GEMs. Purposeful
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knowledge creation and exchange are sufficient to apply the models. Whether activities
are performed to obtain a paycheck or to further the concerns of a business is irrelevant
to the usefulness of the framework.
Zachry, Hart-Davidson, and Spinuzzi defined three levels of work activity to
classify the motivations and intentions, as well as the scope and impact, of the work.
1. Strategic: established by managers or leaders to define organizational
objectives
2. Tactical: established to accomplish specific projects in support of greater
goals
3. Operational: executed by teams or individuals to build to tactical
accomplishments (244).
These three levels are drawn from the ways large organizations stay on track and
move forward. However, the levels also easily apply to other organizations and their
goals. For example, when they are applied to VW tutorials, strategic activities are the
work done by designers, who decide what users should accomplish in the tutorial, while
being mindful about how the accomplishments support the overall purpose of the
world. Tactical activities are the objectives assigned to users when completing the
tutorial. Users learn to navigate, survive, and communicate (operational activities),
which aggregate to accomplish the tactical goals provided.
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Creating Genre Ecology Models for Virtual World Tutorials
The purpose of the latter part of this chapter is to illustrate the ways that genres
and facets of VWs work together to be conducive or nonconducive to educational
applications. It is helpful to first see how a GEM is created to perform a familiar or
intended activity. To this end, I examine the process of creating a GEM for the World of
Warcraft tutorial before discussing learning activities constructed in VWs.
Tutorials in VWs are designed to introduce a new user to the common activities,
or genres, of the world. They are the product of the strategic work of the world’s
creators. Within the tutorial, users are introduced to examples of common tactical goals
and the operations necessary to accomplish them. In the World of Warcraft tutorial, the
strategic goals include introducing the player to the game’s mechanics (i.e., the
competitive relationship with the environment and, later, other users; conditional
identity construction; and object ownership), which drive the dominant activities in the
world.
World of Warcraft is an expansive space. Proximity to mobs, NPCs, and other
resources is necessary for interaction. Therefore, moving one’s avatar within the world
is a foundational operation. The use and placement of one’s avatar is, of course,
communicative (see Yee’s work on avatar proxemics for more); therefore, use and
placement constitute a genre and are placed at the center of the GEM for the World of
Warcraft tutorial.
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There is only one genre related solely to the use of the avatar and not its
position within the world: avatar customization. As discussed in a previous chapter, the
conditional identity construction in World of Warcraft implies that changing the avatar’s
appearance conveys meaning to other users regarding the accomplishments and
personality of the avatar. Other genres rely on the position of the avatar (i.e., the
movement of the avatar within the world), including the use of the avatar’s ability and
its interaction with NPCs. For example, for a hunter to fire his or her crossbow in World
of Warcraft, the avatar must be placed within a certain distance from a monster. The
same is true of interacting with an NPC such as a merchant or quest giver. Most avatar
abilities have a communicative action associated with them. When using the crossbow
ability, the hunter visibly produces a weapon and fires it at the designated target. The
location of the avatar determines which mobs the avatar can fire at. Thus, the
relationship between proxemics and ability usage is a modifying one.
The same is true of the relationship between using an ability and interacting with
an NPC. However, the relationship between the avatar as a genre and interaction with a
quest giver or merchant is sequential. One must first move the avatar near enough to
access the NPC, right click on the NPC, and then dialogue with him or her. Verbal
interaction with other users is less reliant on proxemics because the limitations on
location are much looser. Yet, the relationship is still a modifying one because an avatar
is required to engage in verbal activity, and the global placement of the avatar
determines the channels available to the user for verbal communication.
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Fig. 0-7. Genre ecology model of the World of Warcraft tutorial.
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Other genres may be employed during the tutorial, such as voice chat and
trading among players, but these activities are not introduced in the tutorial and would
only be used by players who are already acquainted with them as genres through
previous play. The tutorial is designed to be a safe and structured introduction to the
genres and activities in World of Warcraft, so discoordinations are avoided by means of
the design. It is possible to have discoordinations within the tutorial, such as a player
mistaking a mob for a quest-giving NPC, which would result in the player’s avatar being
killed by the mob—but this would be rare.
All genres that are key to designer-provided activities, such as those in the
tutorial, are made possible by the mechanics of the world which are, in essence, results
of the world's facets. Avatar customization is tied to conditional identity construction in
World of Warcraft; interactions with quest NPCs and merchants rely on the exchange of
inventory objects, which relies on private object ownership. Almost all avatar abilities in
World of Warcraft are combat abilities because the world has a competitive user-toenvironment relationship.
Commensurate Genres and Ecologies in User-Defined Activities
Tutorials provide an overview of the designer-defined activities within a VW. The
world is, after all, designed to allow users to accomplish these activities. However, a
hallmark of the development of the culture of a VW is the growth of user-defined
activities, either to augment or circumvent the designer-provided goals or to satisfy
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other interests using the VW. If these activities are to take place, they must be
supported by the genres within the world.
Corpse spamming, or spelling out words with bodies in World of Warcraft cities,
is an example of a non-designer-defined activity that is nevertheless supported by the
world’s genres. Because World of Warcraft has limited stigmergy and allows bodies to
lie on the ground for a short time, users can take advantage of this and create shortlived billboards on city streets. Corpse spamming was novel years ago when it was seen
as a witty and innovative application of the world’s mechanics. However, as years
passed, it became common for these billboards to advertise the URLs of gold-farming
sites and other disreputable companies. Thus, users no longer appreciate the practice as
it represents a user-defined activity that no longer supports a user’s desire to engage in
the designer-defined activities; therefore, it is seen as annoying or negative.
The same is true of so-called “noob killers” (high-level players from one World of
Warcraft faction who linger in the starting areas of the opposite faction to kill new
players for entertainment). Noob killers interfere with other players’ ability to
accomplish the designer-defined activities and, therefore, are seen as bullies rather than
humorous. The same activity between players of similar levels is seen as sporting and
part of the player-vs-player (PVP activity in the game.
In this section, I present examples of user-designed activities to illustrate a
hypothesis about why some succeed and some fail. I then use them to evaluate a
specific kind of user-designed activity, educational applications within VWs. To be
successful (i.e., useful, entertaining, and not disruptive or pointless), user-designed
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activities cannot conflict with or be overshadowed by designer-provided activities. Userdesigned activities fall into four categories. Table 4-1 shows each of the four categories
and provides users’ perceptions and examples. For simplicity, I focus on World of
Warcraft and not a range of VWs.
Table 4-1 User-Created Activities Defined by Relationship to Designer-Provided Goals
Label
Conflict
Overshadow
Role of user-created
activity
Conflicts with
designer-provided
activity
Is overshadowed by
designer-provided
activity
Complimentary Compliments or assists
designer-provided
activity
Additional
Neither conflicts with
nor compliments
designer-provided
activity
General user
perception of
activity
Example
Negative
Gold farming
Easily ignored
Chatting on public
channels about topics
unrelated to designerprovided activities
Quest tracking and
map add-ons
Useful, positive
Engaging if
justified or
entertaining
Social gatherings such
as parties or funerals
I hypothesize that educational applications within VWs succeed when they fall
into the categories of complimentary and additional. Educational experiences that fall
into the conflict and overshadow categories will fail to achieve their learning goals. To
illustrate this point, the following pages present a collection of accounts of educational
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experiences executed within a selection of VWs, including the outcomes reported for
each.
Incommensurate activities are not limited to conflicts between user-created
activities and designer-provided activities. The consideration of educational experiences
requires consideration of the relationship between the activities provided by the
instructor and the students’ perception of the activities within the context of the course.
The VW’s designer-provided goals are a layer placed on top of the course. Table 4-2
shows
Table 4-2 Strategic, Tactical, and Operational Goals and Activities across VWs, Courses,
and Students
Zachry’s terminology for the motivations and expected outcomes of activities (strategic,
tactical, and operational).
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Coordination in each column and row are necessary for a successful educational
experience. Instructors are familiar with the issues resulting from discoordinations, seen
in the right column of Table 4-2. For example, if students do not feel that the material in
the course is relevant to their career or that a particular assignment does not contribute
to the learning objectives of the course, they may feel dissatisfied with the class. If an
assignment contributes only slightly toward the overall learning objectives of a course
but requires a long time to complete, students may feel that the assignment is not
worth doing.
VWs add a third layer with its own dominant activities introduces further
potential discoordinations. Learning to use the mechanics of a complex VW such as
Second Life to accomplish a course task worth only a few grade points represents an
operational discoordination between the student and the VW. An inability to observe
students engaging in an activity in order to assess them illustrates a tactical conflict
between VW and course. This framework can be used to assist in the identification of
factors that contribute to the success or failure of VW instructional design.
In the remainder of this chapter, I use Zachry’s framework to analyze VW
education case studies to illustrate why they either succeeded or failed in accomplishing
their learning objectives. Coordinations and conflicts among the strategic, tactical, and
operational activities in the course are identified and discussed. Unfortunately, the
majority of articles concerning VW education refer to either World of Warcraft or
Second Life with little representation of other social or game worlds. However, because
the two worlds share only two facets (dominant content form and dominant user-to-
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user communication), they provide a wide enough range of activities to explore the
theory. Here, I illustrate how the facets serve to complete this framework, which can
assist instructors in choosing the right VW for instruction and in ensuring alignment
among activities, genres, and mechanics.
Coordinating Motivations and Expected Activity Outcomes
As with any emergent or experimental tools, efforts to utilize VWs within
educational contexts have a wide range of results. Innovative and successful uses of
VWs such as World of Warcraft and Second Life have been published in disciplinary
journals and instruction-technology publications. Even practitioners whose efforts have
yielded less than ideal results have been generous enough to share the outcomes of
their courses in publications.
To illustrate the relationship among the strategic, tactical, and operational
activities in a VW, a course, and students’ participation in a course, I present a selection
of case studies of educational applications. I demonstrate that to be successful in
accomplishing learning goals, activities should be complimentary or additional rather
than conflicting or overshadowing. Ultimately, this analysis contributes to an
understanding of VW choice for education. Table 4-3 provides the summaries and
outcomes of the studies, along with the genres, used to accomplish the activities.
The bulk of discoordinations occur due to conflicts between the VW and student
activities. Within worlds where designer-provided activities are dominant (often, game
worlds where user-to-environment and user-to-user relationships are conditional or
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competitive), there is a danger of creating course activities that easily conflict with the
provided activities of the world. While the genres of the world may support an activity,
such as using guild chat as a class discussion space, the activities of the world may prove
too distracting or too contrasting to the class activity, as illustrated by Landon Pirius and
Gill Creel.
However, the inverse also seems to be true. Activities created in VWs that
complement the designer-provided objectives may benefit from the engrossing nature
of activities such as quests and exploration. In applications such as Todd Bryant’s and
John Waters’s, it is clear that designing learning activities that coordinate with designerprovided activities creates a compelling learning experience. In worlds where
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Table 4-3 Analysis of VW education case studies for activity coordination.
Study
Shultz
Colby
and
Colby
(2008)
Waters
(2007)
Virtual
Activity summary and genre
world
identification
World of World of Warcraft was used as a tool
Warcraft for emergent pedagogy in a freshman
composition course, as a topic for
writing, a space for ethnographic and
other qualitative research, and an
authentic reader community for
student work. Students played the
game and wrote rhetorically effective
documents for the World of Warcraft
community, including help
documents, blog posts, and
contributions to discussion boards.
Genres: Designer-provided genres
were used to support game play.
Students created content in external
spaces that provided genres such as
discussion posts and blog entries.
World of University students learning to be
Warcraft Second Life teachers collaborated
with a Chinese middle school to
provide English tutoring through
World of Warcraft using in-game chat
as well as VOIP. Chinese students
played alongside university students
while speaking and writing in English.
Activity coordinations
Activity discoordinations
None
Virtual world tactical/student
tactical (overshadow): The
authors stated that if students
are not clear about the course
objectives, they might not
understand that creating the
rhetorically effective document
is the goal of the assignment
rather than the play itself (p.
309).
Virtual world strategic/course,
student strategic (conflict):
Students and faculty expressed
doubts that playing a game was
worthwhile for the learning
goals of the course (p. 310).
Virtual world
strategic/course and student
strategic (complimentary):
Students in the course
reported that they felt that
tutoring in the game context
made the experience more
meaningful than other
None
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University tutors practiced language
tutoring skills learned in their courses.
Genres: Designer-provided genres
were used to support game play.
Students also engaged in VOIP chat as
a genre through external software.
Pirius
and Creel
(2010)
World of The instructor of an online
Warcraft community college special topics
course about subjective culture,
gender differences, and the
connections between language and
culture chose the community and
culture of World of Warcraft for study
within the course (p. 2). Students
participated in various activities such
as observing public chat, game play
and reflection, formation and
structuring of a class guild, and
observation of culture within the
game, discussion forums, blogs, and
other online spaces.
Genres: Designer-provided genres
were used to support game play and
methods (p. 2).
Virtual world tactical/student
tactical (complimentary): The
Chinese students enjoyed the
tutoring because it allowed
them to play the game and
occurred in the context of
accomplishing game goals
such as quests and item
trading (p. 2).
Virtual world tactics/student
tactics (complimentary): The
students reported that they
saw clear connections
between game play and major
concepts in the course.
Virtual world tactics/student
tactics (complimentary):
Participation in the culture
required students to learn
specialized terminology. They
reported finding this an
interesting addition to their
task of understanding how
language forms culture (p. 3).
Course tactical/virtual world
and student tactical
(overshadow): As much as the
instructors hoped that a virtual
world would create community
among the students, the results
demonstrated that the students
spent little time together inworld and instead spent time
completing assignments on
their own or leveling their
characters alone (p. 5).
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community interaction. Students
repurposed these genres to
accomplish goals such as interviews
and observations.
Bryant
(2007)
World of University students enrolled in
Warcraft German 101 had the opportunity to
play the German version of World of
Warcraft two evenings a week to
satisfy their conversation practice
requirement. With their instructor as
a guide, the students completed
quests while translating the game
interface and interacting almost
completely in German.
Genres: Designer-provided genres
were used to support game play.
Students also engaged in VOIP chat as
a genre through external software.
Wood
(2009)
Second
Life
Students participated in three courses
with activities in Second Life. In the
game design course, students built an
in-world game using a framework and
mechanics provided by the instructor.
Genres: Second Life scripting and
Virtual world
operational/course and
student operational
(complimentary): Students
enjoyed the challenge of
learning game lingo in a
foreign language even though
they were not required to.
Virtual world
operational/course and
student operational
(complimentary): Students
collaboratively translated
quest texts using VOIP.
Successfully translating the
text enabled them to take on
the mission.
Virtual world tactical/course
tactical (overshadow): Though
the instructor planned to ask
students to engage in a specific
set of quests in each meeting,
he often found the students
were so engaged in the game
play that they had already
completed those quests before
class.
Course tactical/student tactical
(conflict): Students felt that
learning Adobe Flash, or
another commonly used game
design tool, would have been
more practical in preparing for
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building tools, avatar customization.
In the web design course, students
were asked to build virtual Second Life
storefronts to present their web
design portfolios.
Twining
(2009)
Second
Life
the job market. They did not
feel Second Life was a viable or
important space for learning
game design.
Genres: Second Life scripting and
building tools, marketing tools such as
classified ads and billboards.
In the service learning course,
students could work with a
community organization within
Second Life. Several worked with
support groups for stroke victims or
HIV/AIDS.
Genres: Voice and text chat, avatar
customization and proximity.
Virtual world
strategic/course strategic
(complimentary): Students
felt that their experience in
the support groups fit well
with the learning objectives
for the course and that they
were an important part of the
support groups. They agreed
that their work in the groups
was valued by the users with
whom they interacted.
High school students used the Second
Life teen grid to introduce them to
concepts related to archeology as a
discipline. Students chose a historical
Virtual world tactical/student
tactical (complimentary): The
thought necessary to design
an interesting and informative
Course tactical/student tactical
(conflict): Students preferred to
have more time to work on
their web designs than learning
the Second Life interface and
building tools. They stated that
they did not believe that
presenting their designs inside
Second Life was valuable in the
job market.
Virtual world tactical/student
tactical (conflict): Only about
10% of students chose to
participate in the Second Life
activity because most did not
believe that virtual world
experience would be valuable
or relevant to course
assignments.
Virtual world
operational/student
operational (overshadow):
Building the installation in
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Wagner
(2008)
Second
Life
artifact, conducted secondary
research about its importance, and
constructed a museum installation to
inform others about the artifact.
Genres: Second Life building and
scripting tools, external sources of
information (e.g., library search, etc.)
installation for the artifact
leveraged Second Life’s
building tools and encouraged
students to make choices
about how best to share their
artifact and information.
Students in a virtual organizations and
global teamwork course had 4 weeks
and a small budget to create a
profitable business in Second Life.
Course topics were e-business,
systems development, virtual work,
and IT planning. All student teams
successfully completed the project. A
survey indicated that most felt that
the exercise was worthwhile and
should be used in future courses.
Genres: Second Life scripting and
building tools, marketing tools such as
classified ads and billboards.
Virtual world strategic/class,
student strategic
(complimentary): According
to survey results, students
saw clear connections
between course goals and the
Second Life project. They felt
that their experience building
a Second Life business was
realistic preparation for other
online ventures.
Second Life was secondary to
the students’ decisions about
what artifact to use and how to
gather information about it. The
Second Life activity was
intended to be the last step in
the assignment, but many
students spent a
disproportionate amount of
time building the installation,
which meant less time for
researching and complaints
about how much time the
assignment required.
Virtual world
operational/student
operational (overshadowed):
Virtual teams had difficulty
working together, finding
meeting times, and dividing
work responsibilities. Four
weeks was not long enough for
many groups to learn Second
Life tools and fulfill the
assignment expectations.
134
O’Connor Second
(2010)
Life
Three consecutive teacher training
courses required students to spend
25% of the semester using Second Life
as a collaborative team space. The
assignments were similar to previous
course assignments completed using
the campus learning management
system.
Genres: Avatar customization,
teleportation, voice and text chat.
Virtual world
operation/student operation
(complementary): Students
commented that they
appreciated the sense of
shared space and presence
offered in Second Life but not
in the LMS (p. 222).
Mahon,
Bryant,
Brown,
and Kim
(2010)
Preservice teachers participated in a
classroom management simulation
built by the class instructor in which
they were challenged to provide
appropriate responses to disruptive
None
Second
Life
Virtual world
operational/student
operational (conflict): Some
students felt unsafe when
required to travel to in-world
public spaces, which they did
not feel when using the LMS or
designated class spaces (p. 222).
Virtual world tactical/student
tactical(conflict): Students
reported struggling to learn the
interface and spending too
much time learning basic
operations
Virtual world strategic/course
strategic (conflict): The
instructor reported that there
was inadequate time to teach
students to use Second Life
because learning the software
was not one of the learning
objectives of the course and
would have taken time away
from the learning goals.
Virtual world
operational/student
operational (conflict):
Technology issues in the lab
where the simulation was
135
students simulated by colleagues and
programmed bots.
Genres: Second Life scripting and
building tools, avatar customization.
conducted made it difficult for
students to fully engage in the
simulation.
Course tactical/student tactical
(overshadow): Teachers playing
the role of disruptive students
disregarded instructions and
began using their avatars in
unintended ways within the
simulation because they
enjoyed playing the roles.
136
there is no set of dominant designer-provided activities, such as social VWs like Second
Life, there is little danger that the world’s activities will crowd out the educational
applications.
Nevertheless, discoordinations are possible. Conflict can arise between student
objectives and course objectives, rather than between the course and the VW. If the
instructor does not make a solid connection between the course’s tactical and operation
goals and the students’ tactical and operational goals, then students will disengage or
misunderstand the purpose of the activities. (Wood’s findings are an example of this
phenomenon.) On the other hand, worlds such as Second Life that lack dominant goals
also offer easily manipulated genres that may be leveraged to design creative learning
activities—but only if students see the purpose and are not overwhelmed by the world’s
operational learning curve.
Using Activity and Genre to Choose Virtual Worlds for Educational Applications
Given the difficulty of designing an effective course, even without the
complications of using a VW, the choice of whether to use a VW as a course tool is a
difficult one. Critical examination of the course and student objectives (strategic,
tactical, and operational) can assure that the basic course design is sound. Checking for
alignment, both vertical and horizontal, ensures that the learning objectives and
associated exercises fit together.
Adding a VW to a course can complicate learning. However, instructors can
prevent discoordinations between the course and the VW’s activities by using table 4-3.
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Even if the VW is new to the students, the instructor can identify the tactical and
operational activities without the students’ having to use the world for an extensive
time. The operational activities are largely the result of identifying the facets of the
world and using the designer-provided genres. For example, understanding that object
ownership is private in World of Warcraft means that there must be mechanics to
manage objects, as well as an economy related to gaining objects. These genres include
personal inventory, auctions, vendor NPCs who buy and sell objects, and a market based
on the rarity of objects.
The tactical activities provide the reasons for using the genres. The genres
related to the object ownership facet of World of Warcraft are the product of tactical
activities related gaining, using, or selling objects. These activities are questing, crafting,
equipping items on one’s avatar, or participating in the auction system to earn money in
exchange for items that other players find useful. In a successful VW, the operational,
tactical, and strategic activities are well aligned. Vertical discoordinations could result in
a less-than-satisfying in-world experience. If object ownership in World of Warcraft
were shared rather than private, then the tactical activities around gaining objects
would make no sense.
After identifying a VW in table 4-3, instructors should look at the activity
coordinations column to discover if the genres support the operational activities of the
course or may be manipulated to create new genres, as well as if the VW’s tactical
activities will accommodate the course activities without overshadowing or conflicting
with them. If there are too many discoordinations, the instructor is faced with three
138
choices. First, if the operational activities (genres) do not coordinate well, but the
tactical activities do, then the instructor should consider using outside tools to provide
the necessary genres. An example of this is Rebekah Shultz Colby and Richard Colby’s
use of blogs and discussion boards to provide students with opportunities for extended
rhetorical exercises: The chat function within World of Warcraft did not support the
creation of help documents to complement the tactical activities, but a blog did. Second,
the instructor should examine a VW with different facets to look for a better fit. If the
course activities require specialized spaces and the VW is not stigmergic, then the
instructor should choose one that is and examine if it would allow the creation of the
spaces necessary for the course. Lastly, it would be wise for the instructor to consider
that a VW is not a proper tool to augment the course.
Examining the facets of VWs facilitates in-depth understanding of the activities
within a VW. The mechanics of a VW are intrinsically tied to the activities and
motivations of users within the world. Without understanding the opportunities and
limitations given by the rules and tools of a VW, the ability to make observations is
limited. Through an understanding of the activities, genres, and facets of a given VW,
instructors and researchers may begin to understand how designer-provided activities
fit with the user-created activities necessary for an educational use of VWs.
Chapter 5: Implications, Limitations and Further Study
As with any study, the results can create more questions than answers. This
chapter offers a discussion of the study’s findings, limitations, and opportunities for
further study.
Virtual Worlds
The purpose of this study was to explore the connections between the
communication mechanics of social technologies and their ability to facilitate effective
learning experiences. The technology, for the sake of this study, was operationalized as
VWs.
Findings
VWs as a technology have never been studied in this way. Previous studies
focused only on one or two worlds at a time and typically for a specific purpose. This
study provides a view of VWs on a larger mechanical scale. The greatest benefit of this
scale of study is the ability to differentiate between seemingly similar worlds. From the
outside, worlds such as SL and ActiveWorlds look very similar but they are mechanically
diverse once their facets are identified. These differences are critically important to
research, education, and other applications. This study provides the first method with
which to understand these critical differences.
The result of the faceted classification supports the case that VWs represent a
convergence of communication tools found separately elsewhere. Because they include
these other communication tools, they may be the ideal operational tool for studies into
140
CMC and educational technology approaches. VWs offer an opportunity to examine
each kind of tool without having to create wholly new experiments for each.
VWs have such dominant designer-provided activities that they may be the most
challenging tools in which to design education applications. And yet, those dominant
activities also mean that they are highly engaging which may mean that they are
powerful learning tools. The insights from this study begin to offer guidance in the
creation of effective experiences that do not compete with these activities and instead
compliment them.
Limitations
The operationalization of VWs is both too narrow and too broad. In one sense,
VWs are such a huge group of technologies that grouping them together may have
eliminated important differentiations that the facets cannot account for. It is possible
that a study of this kind could benefit from focusing only on game worlds (those with
competitive or conditional user-to-user and user-to-environment relationships) or only
on social worlds (those with collaborative user-to-user and user-to-environment
relationships). Each of these groups alone is large enough to warrant thorough study for
both CMC and educational applications.
As with the study of most technologies, work in VWs must accommodate their
constant rate of development. VWs change constantly. It is like studying a river which is
constantly in flux. Because of this rapid rate of change the classification of a world is
only as accurate as its latest software update. Mechanics can change not only via the
world’s developers but also via add-ons created by users where possible.
141
Accommodating these changes within the study is difficult but worthwhile. Without a
willingness to consider these fluctuations studying technologies would be impossible.
In addition to the rapid development and frequent launches of new worlds open
source VWs, such as OpenSim and Minecraft, have converted what would have been
user-created genres and activities, into designer-provided as a result of the user’s ability
to change the mechanics/facets of their own world instance. World with application
program interfaces (APIs) cause similar challenges. Conversely, these worlds also
provide opportunities to develop custom tools for research and education. From survey
tools to Learning Management System plug-ins, worlds with APIs offer custom
opportunities.
Ultimately, the greatest limitation to the use and study of VWs is that they are
commercial products whose owners have their own motivations. The content we create
in most of these spaces do not legally belong to us. We cannot rely on the makers of
these worlds to keep things the same. A single update can make our most well-informed
experience moot.
Further Studies
The ability to classify the mechanics of VWs opens many opportunities for new
research not only for educational applications but in the study of the VWs themselves.
First, let us consider the education research opportunities.
The research presented in this study argues that creating activities within a VW
that complement the dominant activities within that world will be most effective. This
was tested against existing reports of activities in VWs but this study did not include the
142
experimental design of an activity that meets these criteria. Further research should
include testing learning designs to compare outcomes from exercises that do and do not
conform to the activity alignment.
To keep this study relevant and the method utilized useful, the classification
must be a living process. The create a collaborative method to classify emerging tools
such as a wiki would allow other researchers add new worlds to list and to correct facets
on existing worlds if they change.
Beyond education applications, VWs are being used by marketers, corporate
trainers, and others. The method outlined in this study may be useful to researchers in
these areas as well. Marketers, for example, could understand how their messages
would be best received within a world without being intrusive. Utilizing AT and GEM
should help these parties anticipate how their uses of VWs will be perceived by existing
users as well as any users they bring in for their purposes.
For those who design VWs, the findings of this study could help explain why
users of one game world may be attracted or put off by another world. It should also
assist designers of social worlds in understanding how to attract users of game worlds to
try social worlds as well.
Educational Technology
While this study focuses on the application of VWs there are implications for
technologies of all kinds for integration in educational settings from k-12 to corporate
learning.
143
Findings
I would like to split the implications here between the classification and
application of technologies.
Classification
The research here demonstrates why methods such as Bloom’s Technological
Taxonomy are insufficient to classify tools in an accessible way. There is no standard
among educational technology or instructional technology professionals to classify
emerging tools. Bloom’s system may help us understand the kinds of cognitive
processes present in a tool but it does not directly assist educators and designers in
their choice of tool or a method to design effective experiences within those tools. The
findings here provide one such method but there may be others. Fundamentally, I hope
that the research in this work instigates thinking about the need for classifying tools as
well as other ways to do so.
Application
Choosing a tool is only the beginning of a complex process of integrating
technologies into learning situations. The process begins with defining learning needs
and assessing whether a technology would be beneficial. The method outlined here,
when applied to tools other than VWs, could then be used to select a tool and design a
learning experience. Understanding how the tool is otherwise used in elective situations
is necessary to unpack the activities and genres that are commonly used to best create
new experiences that complement the existing culture of the tool.
144
Limitations
The first, and most important limitation of this element of the study, is to
remember that not every learning experience will benefit from technology. Pedagogy
must come first. New technologies are tantalizing because they are often associated
with excitement and novelty which, it seems, may improve the learning experience of
disenfranchised or disinterested learners. It is important to remember, however, that an
enthusiastic instructor and relevant challenging content can address most learning
issues. Unnecessary integration of technology, with even the best design, may often be
unneeded and become simply “bells and whistles.” Research such as this must be
tempered with thoughtful decisions.
It is also important to consider that no system is perfect. There is no magic
technological bullet that will resolve the issues with today’s education system. Because
technology may improve a single learning experience does not mean that there are not
more pressing issues in education that need to be addressed. Access to technology is
not universal nor is access to quality education. While I believe the research in this study
is important it is secondary to these more pressing issues. Technology is not a panacea
for larger issues. Research such as this, which makes the integration and application of
technology easier in education, should not be misused by those who seek to drastically
lower education budgets, reduce teachers, or reduce brick and mortar educational
expenses. Though technology may be used in some situations to improve outcomes, it is
not, and never will be, a replacement for caring professionals and a stable system that
accommodates all.
145
Further Studies
VWs are not the most dominant tech used in education. There are other tools
already in broad institutional use which have never been examined in this way. Tools
such as BlackBoard, Angel, and Desire2Learn, which are used every day by millions of
students, have never been scrutinized in this way. Instead, large scale learning
institutions rely on the commercial producers of these products to understand the tools
which will best facilitate learning. LMSs are similar to VWs in their convergence of tools,
and as such, offer researchers easily accessible spaces for important research.
Conceptual Implications
This study includes several conceptual frameworks employed in conjunction to
create a method with which to view, classify, and employ technologies. Each of these
will be considered here.
Epistemic Rhetoric
This research began with an argument that reality, specifically within the
confines of a VW, is created by language. This ontological view of rhetoric is a founding
assumption for this work. Brummett separates epistemic rhetoric into three arenas:
methodological, social epistemic, and ontological. This study focused only on the third
of these views, a view in which “rhetoric creates all of what there is to know” in a world
where “discourse creates realities rather than truths about realities” (4). This ontological
view allows us to conceive of VWs as a space not only of meaning making but also of
reality making.
146
Findings
Technology allows individuals to more easily create realities, whether in a VW or
another communication space. Therefore, rhetorical studies, specifically those that
come from an ontological epistemic position, are uniquely prepared to not only analyze
new reality-creating rhetoric, but contribute to theory that informs and shapes how
those tools develop and their socio-cultural impact.
Limitations
Brummett admits that the ontological view of epistemic rhetoric is the most
extreme of the three views he outlines. While this view does not go so far as to claim
that there is no physical reality, it does propose that humans have no way to know what
is real without rhetoric as an interpretive and communicative system to make meaning
of the physical world. The ontological view claims that rhetoric is as generative as
science. Though my belief as a scholar is that this view of rhetoric accurately accounts
for its function in human efforts at meaning making, others who disagree with this will
find a fundamental flaw in my argument that VWs represent a new reality and that
other technologies may as well. Once that element of the argument is removed,
debating that prior research could be improved by seeing VWs as a reality and thus
need their own truths outlined, is moot. VWs and the behaviors of the users within
them could simply be viewed as rhetorical acts no different than any other outside the
tools.
147
Further Studies
Taking an ontological epistemic view for this work means that Brummett’s other
two views have been ignored. However, both of these views (methodological and social)
could benefit the study of educational technologies considerably. The methodological
view would allow us to examine VWs, for example, as a way for users to recreate or
interpret external reality. These interpretations may yield valuable insights. The social
epistemic framework would allow rhetoricians to analyze the interactions of VW users,
and users of other technologies, in a way which rhetoric has not done before.
Activity Theory
AT offers an excellent framework to understand the relationship between actors,
their goals, and the tools used to accomplish those goals. Previous work in AT has
focused on the evolution of tools. This work, however, uses AT to explore possible
objects intrinsic to a tool and the external objects that educators bring to the tool.
Findings
The results of this study may help to increase the understanding of the
relationship between learners and the tool that they are using to learn as well as the
community/context of the learning activity. This work also contributes to an
understanding of the complexities involved in the assumptions of default tool uses that
learners and designers may bring with them.
Limitations
In order to apply AT to a learning situation which includes a complex social tool,
one must understand a tool well enough to know what the existing dominant activities
148
are and whether learners approach the situation with preconceptions of how a tool is
used. This requires that instructors, designers, and researchers acquaint themselves, not
just with the mechanics of a tool, but also with the existing culture of a tool and the
level of awareness with which learners approach the tool. In addition, one must at least
attempt to understand what the student’s goals, conceptions, and misconceptions will
be in order to avoid them.
Further Studies
This research focuses more on the relationships between activities and tools
than on the larger context which Engeström adds as rules, community, and division of
labor. Further studies in this area may wish to examine how activities are coordinated
among larger groups of VW users and/or learners. These areas are especially interesting
because, as new realities, VWs also have emerging internal cultures and social mores
which undoubtedly influence user goals and activities.
Genre Ecology Model
GEM was found to be particularly useful in this research as a method to untangle
computer-mediated communication situations in which several tools are used to
accomplish a single activity. As a way to breakdown more complex communication
tasks, GEM is helpful in describing each step within an activity as a way to isolate the
mechanic that makes that step possible within the tool being used.
Findings
Though GEM has been used primarily to examine workplace communication, this
research illustrates its use in explaining others kinds of communication ecosystems. In
149
addition, this research also makes explicit the connection between the facets of a tool
and the genres possible within the tool whether those genres are designer-provided or
user-designed.
Limitations
Some scholars may find GEM analysis too deeply founded in rhetoric as a
discipline. However, Spunizzi et al have made considerable advances in the
development of tools that should be useful to other fields and streamline the creation
of GEMs for research. It should also be noted that there are many other methods of
discourse analysis that could be employed in similar research.
Further Studies
Analyzing learning experiences as GEMs is a new application of Spinuzzi’s
method. Educational psychologists and instructional designers may want to explore
GEM as a way to deconstruct exercises to discover unexpected aspects of a design such
as ensuring various learning modes are addressed, understanding how each step in a
learning experience builds on previous steps, or to explore different methods that
learners may employ to solve the same problem.
Other Implications and Further Study
VWs are but one of many emerging forms of social tools that are gaining ground
on campus and in the classroom. Classifying other groups of technologies such as social
networks and augmented reality applications is a clear next step in this research.
Faceted classification, ACT, and GEM, as combined in this study, can assist us in
150
understanding these technologies, their impact on our lives, and how to develop new
tools which will fill communication needs that are as yet unaddressed.
Conclusion
This research is just the beginning, an effort to place a foundation under a
quickly moving field. Educators will continue to strive to implement technologies to aid
in learning. Researchers will continue to understand how these tools change the way we
live, learn, and work. Rhetoricians should always be at the forefront. After all, to be
human is to share and communicate.
151
Appendix
1
Facet
Definition traits
WAN
Multi-user
Persistent
Avatar
Dominant content form
Text
Image
Dominant user-to-user
communication form
Text
Visual
Voice
Stigmergy
Stigmergic
Nonstigmergic
Limited stigmergy
Object ownership
Private
Public
Shared
2
3
4
5
6
7
Kaneva
Entropia
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
World of Second
Active
Warcraft
Life
Mabinogi Worlds
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
There
8
Virtual
Lower
East Side
Gaia
10
Disney
Toontown
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
9
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
152
None
Environment access
Private
Public
User's relationship with
others
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
User's relationship with
the environment
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
Group membership
None
Single group
Multiple groups
User identity
Static
Custom
Conditional
Group formation
None
Permission or
earned
Open
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
153
Facet
Definition traits
WAN
Multi-user
Persistent
Avatar
Dominant content
form
Text
Image
Dominant user-touser communication
form
Text
Visual
Voice
Stigmergy
Stigmergic
Nonstigmergic
Limited stigmergy
Object ownership
Private
Public
11
12
Mokitow
n
Whyville
13
Habbo
Hotel
14
The Sims
Online
15
Puzzle
Pirates
16
Cybertown
17
18
IMVU
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Moove
19
The
Manor
20
The
Palace
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
154
Shared
None
Environment access
Private
Public
User's relationship
with others
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
User's relationship
with the environment
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
Group membership
None
Single group
Multiple groups
User identity
Static
Custom
Conditional
Group formation
None
Permission or
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
155
earned
Open
X
21
22
23
Club
Red Light
Facet
Penguin Center Cyworld
Definition traits
WAN
X
X
X
Multi-user
X
X
X
Persistent
X
X
X
Avatar
X
X
X
Dominant content
form
Text
X
Image
X
X
Dominant User-touser communication
form
Text
X
X
X
Visual
X
X
Voice
Stigmergy
Stigmergic
X
Nonstigmergic
X
Limited stigmergy
X
Object ownership
X
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Lord of
Sora City the Rings
(closed) Online
Dubit
Faketown
Millsberry
Webkinz
Zwinktopia
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
156
Private
Public
Shared
None
Environment access
Private
Public
User's relationship
with others
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
User's relationship
with the
environment
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
Group membership
None
Single group
Multiple groups
User identity
Static
Custom
Conditional
Group formation
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
157
None
Permission or
earned
Open
X
X
X
X
X
X
31
Facets
Definition traits
WAN
Multi-user
Persistent
Avatar
Dominant content
form
Text
Image
Dominant User-touser communication
form
Text
Visual
Voice
Stigmergy
Stigmergic
X
32
EVE
Online
Guildwars
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
33
34
City of
Heroes, Dark Age
City of
of
Villains Camelot
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
35
36
37
38
39
40
Playdo
Ultima
Online
Anarchy
Online
Tabula
Rasa
Hellgate
Hello
Kitty
(beta)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
158
Nonstigmergic
Limited stigmergy
Object ownership
Private
Public
Shared
None
Environment access
Private
Public
User's relationship
with others
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
User's relationship
with the
environment
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
Group membership
None
Single group
Multiple groups
User identity
Static
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
159
Custom
Conditional
Group formation
None
Permission or
earned
Open
Facets
Definition traits
WAN
Multi-user
Persistent
Avatar
Dominant content
form
Text
Image
Dominant User-touser communication
form
Text
Visual
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
41
42
43
44
V-Zones
HiPiHi
Twinity
Google
Lively
(closed)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
48
49
50
vSide
45
Football
Superstars
46
47
Weblin
Rocket
On
Yoville
Prototerra
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
160
Voice
Stigmergy
Stigmergic
Nonstigmergic
Limited stigmergy
Object ownership
Private
Public
Shared
None
Environment access
Private
Public
User's relationship
with others
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
User's relationship
with the environment
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
Group membership
None
Single group
Multiple groups
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
x
X
X
X
161
User identity
Static
Custom
Conditional
Group formation
None
Permission or
earned
Open
Facets
Definition traits
WAN
Multi-user
Persistent
Avatar
Dominant content
form
Text
Image
Dominant User-touser communication
form
Text
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
51
Tale in
the
Desert
52
53
Spine
World
Exit
Reality
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
54
55
56
57
58
Qwaq
PS3Home
Croquet
Metaplace
Vastpark
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
59
Warham
mer
online
X
60
FreeRealms
162
Visual
Voice
Stigmergy
Stigmergic
Nonstigmergic
Limited stigmergy
Object ownership
Private
Public
Shared
None
Environment access
Private
Public
User's relationship
with others
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
User's relationship
with the environment
Collaborative
Competitive
Conditional
Group membership
None
Single group
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
x
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
163
Multiple groups
User identity
Static
Custom
Conditional
Group formation
None
Permission or
earned
Open
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
164
Works Cited
Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP, 1997. Print.
Ackermann, Edith. “Transforming the World.” A Learning Zone of One’s Own: Sharing
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